BlueStacks puts Android apps on Windows

Today, the company announced first-round funding of $7.6 million from Ignition Ventures, Radar Partners, Helion Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz for its virtualization technology that provides a foundation for Google's mobile operating system atop Windows. It's got partnerships with Citrix for distribution to interested businesses and with assorted as-yet unnamed PC makers for consumers. "The idea is very simple," said Chief Executive and co-founder Rosen Sharma, who previously was McAfee's chief technology officer. It started when the 6-year-old daughter of another company co-founder was using Android apps on his smartphone. "She went to a Netbook, and she wanted the same apps on it," Sharma said. But it wasn't possible at the time. "The number of people who want something like that is very, very large--both consumer and enterprise," Sharma said. Consumers could be interested in having a Windows version of their LinkedIn app for social and work connections, their sports app for staying on top of the latest game results, or Pulse app for reading news, Sharma said. And businesses are interested in extending the reach of mobile apps they've created for their employees. "A lot of people are doing their own apps" inside the company, Sharma said. "The GM dealership app is an Android app. People who were doing BlackBerry apps earlier are doing Android apps now." The company, incorporated in 2008, plans to release a free beta version of its software for people to download in June or July. It hasn't yet set pricing for the final version, which is due to ship in the fourth quarter. Partnerships with PC makers should be announced starting next week, the company said. Once people install the software, running an Android app is easy, Sharma said. "From the user experience, it looks just like they're using an app," he said. Indeed, my CNET colleague Seth Rosenblatt found using Android apps on Windows with BlueStacks a seamless and effortless process. BlueStacks uses Amazon.com's Android marketplace to distribute apps because Google restricts its Android Market to specific ARM-based devices. User interface issues are one complication. Smartphone apps are designed for a touch-screen interface and sometimes for a multitouch interface, so some things won't work easily with a mouse and keyboard. Sharma brushed the worry aside, though. "We are seeing a lot of touch devices. In two years, a standard laptop will have a touch screen," he said. In addition, trackpads on new laptops support multitouch gestures such as pinching and zooming, he said. "That leaves very few apps that require absolute touch or multitouch, like games," Sharma said. "The coverage you get is pretty large." There are some caveats. Android today runs on the variety of ARM processors that are used in smartphones and tablets, but Windows machines--for now at least--use x86 chips from Intel or Advanced Micro Devices. BlueStacks therefore runs its own build of the OS from the open-source Android project.