Eee maker Asustek ponders an Android netbook

Asustek -- which runs the Asus PC business -- has allocated engineers to develop an Android netbook as early as the end of this year. However, the Taipei-based company hasn't yet decided whether to proceed with a final product in this category, according to a report in Bloomberg, which cites Samson Hu, head of Asustek's Eee PC business, as the source of its information.

If Asustek does go ahead with a notebook based on the Google-driven Android platform, it could be an industry first. So far -- in terms of commercial products, at least -- the Android flavor of the Linux OS has appeared only on smartphones. At CES last January, Asus didn't exactly signal disinterest in the notion of notebooks or netbooks running Android.

As previously reported in Betanews, netbooks from Asustek have run Windows XP and a customized version of the Xandros distribution of Linux.

At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona last week, however, chip maker Freescale -- a privately held company spun off from Motorola in 2004 -- announced plans to start offering small netbook chipsets for Android by next quarter.

Also at the MWC, Asustek and GPS specialist Garmin jointly announced two new phones: the G60 and the Windows Mobile-enabled M20. Although the G60 will run Linux, officials haven't yet specified which brand of Linux. Yet Asustek and Garmin both joined the Google-spearheaded Open Handset Alliance (OHA) in December.

In Barcelona, too, HTC rolled out its second Android phone -- the Magic -- as a follow-on to its initial Android phone, the Dream.

Also last week, Dell announced that its own latest netbook, the Mini 10, will be released on Ubuntu Linux and Windows Vista later this year, after its original introduction on Windows XP. Dell's earlier Mini 9 and Mini 10 netbooks have run a choice of Ubuntu or XP.

And earlier this month, Hewlett-Packard released an Ubuntu-based custom OS for its Mini 1000 Mi Edition netbook, while also teaming with Ubuntu distributor Canonical toward full certification of Ubuntu on HP Proliant servers.