News is swirling around the intarweb that Lenovo has chosen to ditch plans to base its innovative IdeaPad U1 hybrid notebook and Skylight smartbook on a custom Linux OS. Instead, they are planning to launch the machines at a later date with Google’s Android operating system under the hood.

Lenovo’s wording below leaves a lot to the unknown, but it kinda sounds like they may skip the Skylight and IdeaPad U1 altogether. While the general design and chassis would likely live on in a future product, the guts would be decidedly obsolete by the time they could transition everything to Android.

After careful consideration of market conditions and user feedback, Lenovo has decided to focus its resources on building a family of next-generation mobile internet devices based upon open technologies such as (but not limited to) the Android kernel, similar to the Lenovo smartphone, which is available for sale in China now.

As a result of Lenovo’s strategic shift towards open standards such as an Android kernel based environment, the Company has shelved its plans to release the initial version of the Skylight smartbook that featured a proprietary Linux-based OS.

Lenovo remains committed to working with our strategic partners to deliver innovative products in the growing mobile internet space, including the aforementioned smartphones and smartbooks, as well as exploring innovative new concepts that continue to “push-the-envelope” like the U1 hybrid PC.

Source: [LaptopMag]

Several reports over the past few days have confirmed that Lenovo is pushing back the Skylight smartbook launch, but a new report also claims the delay was enacted to make the Skylight more competitive against the iPad.

DigiTimes cites a source as saying “since the device’s control is not able to act as smoothly as the iPad, while it does not feature as many functions, Lenovo has decided to postpone the launch for further development.” The delay moves the April launch timeframe out to July.

I am not the least bit surprised that the Skylight is delayed, but the fact that it was to be “more competitive” with the iPad is questionable. Right off the bat, I really think Lenovo needed the extra time to polish the “Skylight” Linux-based OS regardless of the iPad launch.

Early hands-on by various press showed the software to be less than polished and video playback was clearly in need of improvement. Developing your own operating system, whether based on Linux or not, is no small task and Lenovo needs to get this one right.

What is certainly reasonable is that Lenovo had several reasons to delay the launch, including more development work and the fact that it is nearly impossible to share the spotlight with a bit Apple launch like the iPad.

Now the challenge is for Lenovo to get the Skylight launched before any more “iPad competitors” hit the market. The number 2, and maybe number 3, entrants will get some serious airtime as iPad-killers, but if you’re too late to the party, nobody will notice.

In related news, the IdeaPad U1 hybrid has recently gotten its own product page on Lenovo.com with a nifty “Coming Soon” announcement and a sign-up form to be notified when it is available. It seems a bit early to put up such a page, given Lenovo called for a June availability, but maybe the web team is actually going to try to get this one right.

Sources: [DigiTimes], [CrunchGear]