AMD seems to be getting ahead of itself in trying to bring Android to its mobile-centric APUs.
AMD announced at Mobile World Congress on Tuesday that its BlueStacks software, which offers users the ability to virtualize Android on Windows, is now ready to be launched and will be available from retailers, initially in Europe, later this year.
Bluestacks doesn’t allow for dual-booting, nor is it meant to allow users to replace Windows with Android entirely. Rather it allows for users to run a virtualized version of Android — and have it access all of the PCs hardware — within Windows.
Bluestacks was first introduced by AMD at CES in January. The software wasn’t developed directly by AMD, rather AMD funded its development along with other partners like Citrix. The first beta of the software was released in 2011, so the first official release of the product has been anticipated for quite some time.
“The ability to span two OS ecosystems gives end-users access to both Windows and Android apps, but the key is providing for the seamless integration of entertainment and productivity across those ecosystems,” said Steve Belt, corporate vice president, Product Management, at AMD, in a press release. “Introducing our solution in retail puts AMD and BlueStacks in a unique position to offer in-store customers the option to include access to this great experience at the time of purchase of their new systems.”
But for AMD, what’s the point of this exercise? It’s no secret that the company has mobile ambitions, but much like rival Intel, it can’t seem to get manufacturers enthused about putting its chips in tablets. As of now, the only hardware win AMD has for its chips in this form factor is an 11.6 inch tablet from Vizio — a company best known for rebranding Taiwan-made ODM TVs and selling them in middle-America box stores with the sales pitch that the consumer is “buying American”. This isn’t exactly a hardware win to be proud of.
The AMD-optimized Bluestacks should become useful if AMD can ever rack up some serious hardware wins in the tablet world. Running Android above Windows on a virtualized layer might be the prefered method among users familiar with software such as Parallels, rather than using a dual-boot solution such as what Intel proposes. Android isn’t entirely useful on a dedicated PC interface, and users will likely want to stick with Windows except for the occasional bout of Angry Birds.
But until AMD begins racking up hardware wins, this is nothing more than a case of the company getting ahead of itself.
Bluestacks was first introduced by AMD at CES in January. The software wasn’t developed directly by AMD, rather AMD funded its development along with other partners like Citrix. The first beta of the software was released in 2011, so the first official release of the product has been anticipated for quite some time.
“The ability to span two OS ecosystems gives end-users access to both Windows and Android apps, but the key is providing for the seamless integration of entertainment and productivity across those ecosystems,” said Steve Belt, corporate vice president, Product Management, at AMD, in a press release. “Introducing our solution in retail puts AMD and BlueStacks in a unique position to offer in-store customers the option to include access to this great experience at the time of purchase of their new systems.”
But for AMD, what’s the point of this exercise? It’s no secret that the company has mobile ambitions, but much like rival Intel, it can’t seem to get manufacturers enthused about putting its chips in tablets. As of now, the only hardware win AMD has for its chips in this form factor is an 11.6 inch tablet from Vizio — a company best known for rebranding Taiwan-made ODM TVs and selling them in middle-America box stores with the sales pitch that the consumer is “buying American”. This isn’t exactly a hardware win to be proud of.
The AMD-optimized Bluestacks should become useful if AMD can ever rack up some serious hardware wins in the tablet world. Running Android above Windows on a virtualized layer might be the prefered method among users familiar with software such as Parallels, rather than using a dual-boot solution such as what Intel proposes. Android isn’t entirely useful on a dedicated PC interface, and users will likely want to stick with Windows except for the occasional bout of Angry Birds.
But until AMD begins racking up hardware wins, this is nothing more than a case of the company getting ahead of itself.
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