At CES this year, Intel and AMD announced they would provide support for Android and Windows dual-boot devices, but ASUS has apparently dropped their Transformer Book Duet TD300 at the request of Google and Microsoft.
Microsoft was the company to lay down the law on ASUS and other dual-boot manufacturers, adding a new policy to partners saying they will not support dual-boot operating systems.
It is odd that Microsoft and Google have moved to make sure ASUS and other manufacturer do not try this dual-boot setup, considering Apple has been open to dual-booting Windows for almost a decade.
This is a different matter however, where Apple was open to Windows running on Mac OS, Apple did not allow Mac OS on Windows, meaning only Apple could manufacturer devices capable of dual-booting.
For Microsoft, this allowed them to offer their operating system to Mac OS users and in recent years we have seen Apple grow to one of the biggest PC manufacturers, even if Windows still controls around 90% of the market.
Android, on the other hand, if free and open to use and any manufacturer could add both operating systems. This could lead to manufacturers dual-booting the two operating systems simply because they can.
Google are obviously not going to lay down any laws for manufacturers, even though the company is getting stricter on Android use, pushing manufacturers to not dual-boot would be too much and show Android as a closed system, similar to Windows.
We did report on Microsoft terminating the licensing fee for Windows Phone and Indian manufacturers like Karbonn and Lava both wanting to make dual-boot mobiles, running Windows Phone and Android.
It is still unknown what Microsoft’s stance is on dual-booting Windows Phone and Android, we guess it is not going to be friendly. However, since WP currently has little to no market share, Microsoft may have an advantage to allowing dual-boot mobiles.
