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Well, the proverbial ink hadn't even dried on our recent column about smartbooks and ARM when Nvidia came around and doused the excitement with a bucket of ice water. The prospect of Linux in general or Android in particular running on an ARM smartbook has had many in the blogosphere salivating, but Nvidia's Mike Rayfield recently said his company prefers Microsoft's Windows CE over Android for that purpose. CE "is a rock-solid operating system," Rayfield told Computerworld.
I want to start off by saying I like Android, I think it and WebOS (I'd much rather have an Android phone than an iphone any day) are the two smartphone OS' that have a chance to be as good if not better than iphone OSX. I also agree that Windows Mobile is lacking. Companies try and put a skin on it and it looks better, but it ends up still being Windows Mobile...slow and if you have to go beyond the skin, old looking.
Now here is what I also see (and hope). Microsoft knows this and like with Windows 7 they know they have to do something about it. I think WM 6.5 is going to be a little better, but still suck but I think WM 7 is gong to shine. If MS is smart they are doing a full re-write of the OS and they're going to be a contender. We'll see what happens in 2010.
I think you're right, Nvidia doesn't really want to do open source. Its easier to just work on drivers for Microsoft and OSX. Nvidia is even getting out of making chipsets for AMD processors (thats because AMD bought ATI but still). I think as time goes on if Android shows that it can be strong then Nvidia will come around. Right now Android doesn't have a lot of handsets, and they don't know if it'll work well in the netbook arena. I think Nvidia wants to be sure before they jump in. They don't want to do open source but if they see its profitable, then they will.
Now here is what I also see (and hope). Microsoft knows this and like with Windows 7 they know they have to do something about it. I think WM 6.5 is going to be a little better, but still suck but I think WM 7 is gong to shine. If MS is smart they are doing a full re-write of the OS and they're going to be a contender. We'll see what happens in 2010.
I think you're right, Nvidia doesn't really want to do open source. Its easier to just work on drivers for Microsoft and OSX. Nvidia is even getting out of making chipsets for AMD processors (thats because AMD bought ATI but still). I think as time goes on if Android shows that it can be strong then Nvidia will come around. Right now Android doesn't have a lot of handsets, and they don't know if it'll work well in the netbook arena. I think Nvidia wants to be sure before they jump in. They don't want to do open source but if they see its profitable, then they will.
