Microsoft is under the gun to build a new app store from scratch, but Asus may have just solved the problem by partnering with BlueStacks to port Android apps to Asus PCs.
Asus has revealed a new partnership at Computex today to make its computers more Android-friendly. By teaming with BlueStacks (download), which makes an “app player” for running Android apps on Windows, the company will make Android apps available on 30 million Windows computers around the world.
“Asus has always been an innovator, and this is a big move for the space,” BlueStacks’ Chief Executive Officer Rosen Sharma wrote in an e-mail to CNET. “Thirty million computers running mobile apps is a lot, but it’s just the beginning.”
Asus will include BlueStacks in its asus@vibe entertainment platform, which currently ships on all Asus computers. It will include six months of free access to hundreds of thousands of Android apps, after which customers must pay a subscription fee to continue unfettered app access. If they don’t pay, BlueStacks will still work but with far fewer apps available — about 50 or so of the top apps.
Legacy Asus computers already in the marketplace will get BlueStacks on June 4, as soon as the app player is available in asus@vibe. The first Asus computers to ship with BlueStacks integrated are expected to be running Windows 7, shipping in September, and Windows 8, when it becomes available sometime during the third quarter this year.
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