Google CEO Eric Schmidt is predicting good times ahead for Android. The statement coming as part of the company’s first quarter investors’ conference.

“Overall, it looks like Android is going to have a very strong year,” he said. New announcements of Android-related products and partnerships with mobile phone service providers and device makers will be “quite significant” this year, he said. Android could become the first real challenger to Microsoft’s Windows XP in netbooks.

Taiwan’s Asustek Computer, which pioneered commercial netbooks, is rumored to be working on an Eee PC netbook that uses Android as its OS, while other Taiwanese companies are also reportedly developing such products. Taipei-based High Tech Computer developed the first smartphone around Android, the T-Mobile G1, or as HTC calls it, the Dream.

[via Computer World]