Chipmaker AMD has joined with startup software company BlueStacks. They will bring about 500,000 Android apps onto Windows 8 tablets and desktops.
Android apps will be available on Windows 8 devices via AMD's AppZone player. A code written by BlueStacks will help optimize these apps for Windows 8 devices, BBC News reported. The code will act as a wrapper, killing any compatibility issues.
This is in contrast with Microsoft, which reportedly has only a thousand apps written specifically for Windows 8.
The core code has been tweaked by AMD to make sure that the apps built for mobile phones look good on a big screen.
"This helps AMD leapfrog Intel by making Windows 8 more attractive on their tablets and PCs," Rosen Sharma, CEO of BlueStacks told Wired. "We've worked closely together to optimise the performance of the apps for AMD's unique 'graphics and computing on one chip' setup. The result is awesome -- mobile apps run beautifully on their machines."
AppZone player will be preinstalled in future AMD Windows 8 devices. Users can synchronize apps from their desktop and mobiles or tablets. BlueStacks' Android-running software can also work on Intel-powered devices and Macs.
Both companies, AMD and BlueStacks, are already in talks with PC manufacturers to make AppZone a preloaded feature in all AMD devices.
Wired reported that Microsoft would take more than a month to get specifically-written Windows 8 apps into its Windows Store. Users can download these Android apps instead. It will make developers work easy, as they are provided with a wider distribution network and there is no need to build a separate platform.
BlueStacks was launched in 2011 by Rosen Sharma, former CTO at McAfee. The company also won the Best Software award at CES 2012.
