Earlier this month BlueStacks announced it had launched the first public alpha version of its Android App Player for Windows. Recently AMD revealed that it has decided to put in some investment money into BlueStacks, and confirmed that it was working with BlueStacks to optimize its app player to work on AMD-powered tablets and notebook PCs.
This is a very interesting development for all parties involved, and by that we don"t mean just AMD and BlueStacks. We also mean the larger companies of Microsoft and Google and the tens of thousands of app developers. Having an app player for Android-based programs that enables apps to run on Windows-based devices means that app makers could see their market expand even more than before on AMD-based products.
It also means that Microsoft, at least indirectly, has their hands inside yet another Android revenue stream. Microsoft already has patent agreements with half of all Android-based smartphone and tablet makers. While Microsoft won"t be getting any direct money from BlueStacks" Windows program, the fact that Android apps can now run inside Microsoft"s operating system can"t be making Google very happy.
The big question is: Could Google do something about this situation, in the legal sense? We can"t imagine that Apple would allow iOS apps to run on Windows without some kind of lawsuit. We are betting that there are some people in a conference room in Google"s debating on whether or not to take legal action against BlueStacks, and perhaps AMD.
Would that be the right thing to do? In our minds, no. But its been our experience that lawsuits can be filed against anyone for anything. Let"s hope Google has a cool head about this.