VentureBeat reports that Google's Android mobile platform could make the transition from T-Mobile's G1 cell phone to full-featured netbooks. The site claims it got Android running on an Asus Eee PC 1000H in about four hours, and going by prior evidence and word from anonymous sources, it expects Android-powered netbooks to start hitting the market as soon as next year. There's no doubt that Android has clear advantages: backing from Google, freely available source code, and a solid Linux base. Using a current iteration of the operating system, VentureBeat managed to get Wi-Fi and audio working-and Android adjusted to the Eee's 1024x600 resolution automatically.

Based on the progress we see in the Android open source project, we believe that getting an Android netbook to market is doable in as few as three months. Of course, the timing depends as much on decisions by the partners in Google's OHA alliance and other developers contributing to Android, as it does on Google itself. It is these partners - including device makers and carriers - who decide how and when to adopt Android for different devices and markets. As we note below, Intel is one such contributor working on the adoption of Android to a notebook.

A mass production of the netbooks would be possible between three to nine months, depending on circumstances, two sources familiar with such matters told us. However, as we evaluate the progress of the various OHA projects, we expect conditions for a mass-market netbook to ripen in 2010, rather than in 2009. Right now a variety a of OHA members, announced and unnanounced, are working on projects to set up a sufficient ecosystem.

One important part of the ecosystem would be to have a set of well-functioning applications (an office productivity suite, for example). Google is mostly leaving applications development for Android to third parties (applications which run in the browser like Google Docs being the notable exception). At the rate things are going, we don't see enough of these third parties developing applications for Android netbooks in the next 12 months. There have been recent predictions about Android netbooks appearing in 2009.

Interesting, seems to be the beginning of Google's assault on Microsoft!