OStatic

Following Google's announcement of its Chrome OS, which will arrive in late 2010 and is headed for netbooks, most reactions around the web are positive. There are some who say it has an ice cube's chance in Hell of succeeding, some who say it could be a geeks-only phenomenon, and we've provided our assessment of the mixed chances that Chrome OS has. There's no question that it is attracting interest from hardware developers and others, though. As a blog post from Google and IDG News Service report, Hewlett-Packard (the number one PC maker), Acer and Asus--all big players in the netbook arena--are among early Chrome OS partners.?

As the Register notes, there is some evidence emerging that Dell may be working on netbooks based on the Android operating system. The Wall Street Journal reports that software maker BSquare issued a press release which said it?s coming up with a system to use certain Adobe Systems software on heretofore unannounced Dell netbooks running Google?s Android platform.? The Journal also reports that both Dell and BSquare have said the announcement shouldn't have been made, although neither company has denied that Android netbooks are in the works.?

Today, Hewlett-Packard--the world's number one PC vendor--has announced a new line of notebook computers called ProBooks, with one shown here. The systems fall into the prosumer space (professional/consumer) and are bigger and more fully stocked than most netbooks. Notably, HP is offering SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 as an operating system choice on the ProBooks, in addition to Windows Vista and XP. HP's arch-rival Dell is also continuing to ship portable computers with Linux installed, and is seeing many users satisfied with Linux. Can Linux remain a fixture on portable systems?

We've reported on successful efforts to run the Android OS on netbooks and e-ink devices, and on how Android may ultimately be more successful on these platforms than on phones. Among other developments on this front, Qualcomm is running Android on its Snapdragon chipset designed for netbooks and mobile Internet devices. (Another Qualcomm chip powers the G1 Android phone.) Now, in a post called One Step Closer to the Google Linux Desktop, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is analyzing reports that Hewlett-Packard, ASUS, and other computer makers are in talks with Google about putting Android on netbooks.

The $379.99 Hewlett-Packard Mini 1000 MI netbook is a new Linux-based offering with a customized user interface shell dubbed MI for Mobile Internet. JKOnTheRun has been putting one of the first units through the paces, and offers up a photo tour. These guys try netbooks by the truckload, and they say that this new unit is the smallest and lightest one with a comfortable 10-inch display that they've used. It ships with Ubuntu, a 1.6-GHz Atom N270 processor, 1GB of memory, a multi-format card reader, HD audio and 16 GB of SSD storage. The built-in browser is a variant of Firefox, and it looks like it supports extensions. Check the svelte system out here, and check HP's site out for more.

After dragging its feet, Hewlett-Packard is stepping up with an answer to cloud computing by inking a partnership with Intel, Yahoo and three universities to create a cloud computing testbed. The cloud will comprise six physical locations where mostly HP servers containing between 1,000 and 4,000 mostly Intel cores will run Apache Hadoop. Hadoop is the open source infrastructure for taking advantage of huge clusters of computers to produce fast results for queries. It's behind much of Yahoo's search, as we covered here. Today, GigaOm offers complete analysis. Check it out.

News is swirling this week about new forms of competition in the market for sub-notebook computers, and open source is driving change in this space--especially in terms of price competition. As I wrote before, Linux-based laptops are going through a renaissance at the moment, especially driven by the $400 Asus Eee PC. These small, useful systems are moving from the VIA chips they were based on to Intel's Diamondville CPUs. Everex's $399 Linux-based Cloudbook laptops are also generating buzz. Now, Hewlett-Packard has a new entrant in the space, with its diminutive Mini-Note, aimed at shoolchildren.