OStatic

While competition among smartphone operating systems is raging, with the Symbian OS, the BlackBerry OS, the iPhone OS, and Android getting top billing, Windows Mobile is seriously teetering. As GigaOm suggests, Android may very well kill Microsoft's mobile operating system. Mototorola has a huge bet on Android in the works, and appears to have little interest in Windows Mobile, and Microsoft's own top executives are acknowledging mobile missteps. Check out the details here.

SpringSource takes on Java goliaths. The company is proving that commercial open source can peacefully coexist with community involvement.

Microhoo lessons for open source. Yahoo?s open source projects are now held by a company that is cash poor.

Acer: Android netbook on track for Q3. The company has wavered on whether it will deliver one, but it apparently is on track, and may dual-boot with Windows.

The Gap moves from Windows to Red Hat Linux. The company needed to revamp its entire end-to-end business technology platform.

Dell: New Ubuntu desktop PC launching soon. There?s a high probability that it will debut the week of August 2nd.

One thing that both Google and Apple share is that almost the instant that they announce a new product, the public loves it. That's partly because they tend to deliver winning products, but they don't always do so. Google has shuttered a number of projects from its labs, and its productivity applications are popular, but haven't come close to toppling Microsoft Office. And remember the Apple Newton? I barely do either.

For these reasons, and because an operating system is a complex thing to build and gather support for, it makes sense to scrutinize Google's actual chances of delivering a hit with it's newly announced Chrome OS. Here are some things that will work in Google's favor, and some that will not.

Over at ComputerWorld, Seth Weintraub waxes poetic about Microsoft's decision to offer a Windows 7 Starter edition to keep its presence strong in the netbook arena, and why this is a huge advantage for Google's Linux-based Android.

Windows 7 Starter edition is designed to run no more than three applications simultaneously -- purchasing an upgrade allows users to run, presumably, as many apps as their netbooks can handle at one time. Now, three concurrent applications at a shot might be sufficient for a number of users; it might be all that some netbooks can handle, depending on the applications and system resources running in the background. Microsoft isn't hiding the fact it is experimenting with a limited Starter, and hopefully netbook manufacturers will also make buyers aware of this. But awareness and being almost sufficient in even most cases is irrelevant. It's the concept that there is a limit, and purchasing an upgrade for functionality that most won't need every day (but when it's needed, it's really needed) that will make netbooks running alternative operating systems increasingly attractive. It's an advantage not only for Android, but any Linux distribution netbook builders optimize for their hardware.

Boxee adds Pandora Radio and hints at the future. The open source media center application's Pandora feature is brilliant, and there's more in a new alpha.

Awesome Tweet: Peter Rojas says Flash coming to Android. The development house BSQUARE has been hired to port Flash to the Android platform.

Shifty answers from Microsoft at OSBC? Some of the company's answers to open source questions sounded like mumbo-jumbo.

Gone but not forgotten: 10 operating systems the world left behind. Some people miss OS/2.

Launching a Linux startup: no funny business. Hackett and Bankwell is a series of cartoon manuals that teaches readers how to get started with Linux.

?Sun crams the Internet in a box. Three petabytes of archived web pages.?