Gartner: Android 'snappy,' Windows 7 less so
Android running on devices at Computex was "snappy," while Windows 7 less so, according to a Gartner report published Monday. The report concluded that there is momentum behind the ARM chip platform.
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"Android is the first Linux OS backed by a strong consumer brand--Google," write analysts Christian Heidarson and Ben Lee in Gartner's Semiconductor DQ Monday Report.
Though they stopped short of endorsing the platform--saying that Android is a work-in-progress--they did offer some hope for future Android-based devices running on ARM processors versus Windows 7-based Netbooks running on Intel's Atom processor. "There is a sense among PC manufacturers that although Android is not ready for prime time today--or tomorrow--it will inevitably get there," they wrote.
The report continued. "When Android did work, we found that the user interface was very snappy on relatively low-performance ARM processors, more so than on Windows 7 on (Intel's) Atom. What we learned about support from critical software vendors convinced us that there is momentum behind ARM in the PC industry, enabled by Android."
In an interview last month, Michael Rayfield, general manager of the mobile business unit at graphics chipmaker Nvidia, echoed this sentiment. "Android has got a roar ahead of it," he said. But he added: "I think it's three of four quarters from a large-screen device." Nvidia is developing its ARM-based Tegra chip platform for Android as well as Windows CE.
Other chipmakers such as Freescale Semiconductor are also touting the potential for Android on ARM-based chips. "The potential that Google has--this has got everybody's attention," said Glen Burchers, director of global consumer segment marketing at Freescale, in an interview last month.
The Gartner report was cited earlier by IDG News.
Brooke Crothers has served as an editor at large at CNET News, an editor at Dow Jones' Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, and a senior editor at InfoWorld. His CNET blog covers chip technology and computer systems, and how they define the computing experience. He also contributes to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. Follow Brooke on Twitter @mbrookec. 
- by ikramerica--2008 June 15, 2009 4:09 PM PDT
- Isn't it always true that a new OS seems fast because it's lacking features to slow it down, while a new iteration of a MATURE OS like Windows seems slow because they have to work out the kinks but all the features are there?<br /><br />Didn't we see this same sort of thing with BeOS? Lacking many features, bells and whistles, it was fast. But start adding those features back, and the "old dog competition" catches up.
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- by LaTene_Man June 15, 2009 5:14 PM PDT
- Not to get too far off topic, but BeOS also had multi-threaded mutli-tasking when others didn't at the time. It WAS fast by nature, not from a lack of features. Apple would have done good to bite the bullet and buy Be , but buying NeXT worked out, so all's well that ends well. (Except for Be!)
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- by Lerianis3 June 15, 2009 10:39 PM PDT
- DING! DING! DING! ikramerica--2008 wins the 1 million dollar prize!
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<br />The fact is that the only reason that Windows 7 looks 'bloated' to the idiots out there is that they are trying to include every functionality that a person might want in the OS itself, so that people don't have to deal with the 'add-on incompatibility' problems that come up when you leave something out and 50 different people make their own version of that thing that you left out.
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- by ikramerica--2008 June 16, 2009 12:02 AM PDT
- Yeah, I used BeOS on my Umax J700, and it was a fun toy, but it had almost no features. It was cool to see it work so well, but it was also lacking.
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