Lenovo to offer Esper's custom Android as Windows alternative for desktop PCs

Although Windows and Linux have been dominating the market for pre-built desktop PCs for a while and that won't change anytime soon, Lenovo has decided to offer an Android-based option as well. However, this piece of code for the brand's devices doesn't come directly from Google. Esper's custom Android operating system is what Lenovo has chosen and last week's agreement arrived with a first device classified as Esper Foundation-ready, namely the third-generation ThinkCentre M70a.

Described as "an enterprise grade powerful and robust custom OS for x86 and ARM devices," Esper Foundation will be certified to run on three more Lenovo devices by the end of the year. These devices are the Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q, M90n-1 IoT, and the ThinkEdge SE30 v2.

According to Johanny Payero, Lenovo's Director of Global Advanced Solutions Marketing and Strategy, "This collaboration is another step forward in Lenovo’s drive to meet changing customer demand across retail, hospitality, healthcare, and other industries. Dedicated devices are proliferating across several key industries, and our new joint solution with Esper allows us to deliver the best of Android with the consistency and predictability of Lenovo’s x86 devices."

While home users usually find little benefit in running Android on their PCs, a report published last year revealed that enterprise dedicated device use cases involved a 41% slice for Android, followed by Windows with 26% of the market. While the lack of official support for x86 devices remains a problem to this day, 9 out of 10 respondents have also shown their interest in running Android on x86 hardware. The study can be found here (direct link to a PDF file).

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