Is Kogan on a winner with its Google Netbook?
As Kogan Technologies' Android smartphone draws closer, Adam Turner is impressed that Kogan has embraced Google on the desktop for its new netbook.
The photos of Kogan's upcoming Agora netbook look impressive - practical if not sexy, a bit like a mini ThinkPad. Still, I'm more interested in the software than the hardware. The choice of the Google-inspired Good OS Linux operating system (or gOS for short) could be a masterstroke by Ruslan Kogan.
Ruslan Kogan has already been burned by Google, forced to put the Android-based Kogan Agora smartphone on hold for dubious reasons, but he's smart enough to know that Google is still a good star to hitch your wagon to.
With the launch of Asus' Eee PC, Linux looked set to dominate the netbook market until Microsoft came to the party with Windows XP. Fear of the unknown certainly drove many netbook buyers to opt for Windows. While the gOS flavour of Linux isn't officially endorsed by Google, it comes with the suite of Google Apps pre-installed. It's based on Ubuntu, so there are plenty of apps and support around. It's apparently easy to install new applications through a marketplace app, plus I'm guessing it will also play nicely with Android smartphones.
I haven't put gOS through it paces yet, but I'm very keen to get my hands on one of these tiny Agora netbooks. If you're a heavy user of Google services, it looks as if you'd barely notice you were using Linux instead of Windows (which is how your operating system should be).
Showing off a Linux-powered netbook with all the familiar Google apps running on the desktop could be enough to help Kogan conquer that "fear of the unknown" factor. Of course that fact that it's the only sub-AU$500 10 inch netbook on the market will also help. In my opinion, 10 inches is the sweet spot for such devices (although I'd spend the extra for the $549 Pro model with a bigger battery and more RAM).
The Kogan netbook even features a slot behind the battery for a 3G SIM card, but the Agora doesn't currently have the hardware to support it. I'd want to be sure I could get a mobile broadband USB stick running smoothly before I handed over my money, but if it's based on Ubuntu this shouldn't be a problem.
If you're going to take on the big boys, you need great and powerful friends. Kogan may have found these friends in Google, Android and gOS.
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