Gartner analysts think Android could prove to be quite successful in netbooks, but on the other had the strokers of gray beards don't think it's ready just yet, but it will eventually get there.

Android was developed for smartphones, but more and more vendors are trying to squeeze it into netbooks and ARM-based smartbooks.

"When Android did work, we found that the user interface was very snappy on relatively low-performance ARM processors, more so than Windows 7 on Atom," says Garner. Mind you, we do emphesise the first bit of the sentence.

Microsoft's decision not to port Windows 7 for ARM CPUs, or to create a Windows Mobile version for smarbooks will leave a bit more breatheing space for Google's Android OS. Unlike Windows, Android can run on both ARM and x86 processors, and thanks to cool and power efficient ARM CPUs, vendors can create thinner, fanless smartbooks than they could with x86 CPUs.

Although this might seem like a big advantage over Intel's Atom, bear in mind that Pineview is just around the corner, and it will allow netbook makers to come up with more compact, fanless netbooks running Windows 7.

More here.