At least, they hadn’t until the summer of 2009 when Saraf took a trip to Switzerland with his family. Throughout the trip he allowed his then six-year-old daughter, Mahi, to play games on his Android phone. Of course, when he got home, Mahi wanted to keep playing the same games on the family computer–a Windows PC. And, with that, Saraf and team had their idea.

Now, they are ready to share their idea publicly. BlueStacks plans to show off its technology at the Citrix Synergy conference on Wednesday, as well as detail its ambitious plan to convince PC makers to load their software on new computers, ideally enabling tens of millions of Windows computers to run Android apps over the next couple of years.

The company plans to announce the first deals with computer makers next week at the Computex trade show in Taiwan. BlueStacks is also announcing it has nabbed $7.6 million in Series A funding from investors from Ignition Ventures, Radar Partners, Helion Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz.

Under the covers, BlueStacks uses virtualization, though the goal is to make all the techy stuff invisible to the user, so that all they see is a Windows PC that can also run Android apps.

Sharma, the company’s CEO, told AllThingsD that the company thinks it will find eager customers among PC makers looking to stand out from one another, while reacting to the rise of the iPad and Android.

“All of them are suffering because the iPad came out,” Sharma said. “They don’t really have an answer. The answer most of them come up with is lets make an Android tablet.”

However, Sharma said he questions how many they will sell, particularly if they don’t have anything to stand out from the pack.

Of course, any system running BlueStacks’ software is, at its heart, a Windows machine with all the pros and cons that entails. That means it won’t have the battery life or instant start-up of an Android tablet or iPad, but it also can run all of the Windows apps, in addition to those for Android.

As for BlueStacks’ business model, Sharma said the company is focused on getting as broad distribution as it can, but is seeking payment for each PC that ships with its software. Though the deals vary, he said it is more than $10 per PC, though he wouldn’t be more specific.

“It’s not in the single digits,” he said.

In the initial release, BlueStacks software will support version 2.2 of Android, also known as Froyo, though it should be upgradeable in the future. The company also hopes to offer a version that existing PC owners can download to run Android on their PCs.

The idea of mixing mobile operating systems with Windows is not new, though others are taking somewhat different approaches. HP, for example, has said it plans to start enabling the WebOS used on Palm phones to run on the company’s Windows PCs. Meanwhile, Lenovo has shown a convertible tablet that runs Android when used as a tablet and then runs Windows when a keyboard is plugged in. In that case, though, it has two separate computers and the cost of the product is roughly the same as a PC and Android device combined.

Tony Conrad, CEO and co-founder of Sphere–the contextually relevant content engine AOL bought in the spring of 2008 for upward of $25 million–left the Time Warner (TWX) online unit last month, several sources have told BoomTown in recent weeks.

But, in an effort by AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong to hold onto entrepreneurial talent, Conrad (pictured above) has agreed to become “Special Advisor” to its AOL Ventures Unit, headed by Jon Brod.

Conrad, who also works as a partner at San Francisco venture firm True Ventures, is also apparently looking to launch a new start-up.

These many moves have now been confirmed by a blog post–obtained by BoomTown–set to be published by Conrad at Sphere, which has recently changed its name to Surphace (a goofy moniker that still makes me weep, and not for joy).

Titled, “Next,” the post will also be appearing on the True Ventures site.

In it, Conrad outlined the changes and also gave big thanks all around.

You can read the whole thing below. In the post, Conrad noted that “I also find myself with a burning need to start another company…[and] I’ve decided that I need to move on from Sphere to figure it out.”

Sphere was founded in 2005 and raised about $4.25 million from many investors, some of which included Radar Partners, Trident Capital and well-known Web players Scott Kurnit and Will Hearst.

Conrad, who was involved with Webmail and RSS aggregator Oddpost (acquired by Yahoo in 2004), is also on the board of Automattic/WordPress, the blog publishing system this site uses.

This kind of history gives him a lot of Silicon Valley cred to help AOL, which also recently hired former Yahoo (YHOO) exec Brad Garlinghouse to run its communications arm and be its “CEO of Silicon Valley.”

Both will be working with Brod, who came to AOL via its acquisition of hyperlocal community news start-up Patch Media.

Brod has previously worked closely with Armstrong, who was a major Patch investor.

All these players will have their hands full trying to push AOL’s reputation among entrepreneurs, which is–how can I put it delicately?–pretty nonexistent.

But boosting innovation will be key to success as AOL prepares to spin off from Time Warner later in the year.

And that was not exactly helped by its recently released slate of board picks, who are a little light on fast-paced, Web 2.0 entrepreneurial skills.

So, keeping someone like Conrad in the AOL tent is a good move, especially since several similar execs at start-ups bought by the online giant have left.

They include Michael Jones of Userplane, who is now COO of News Corp. (NWS) social networking unit MySpace, as well as many others.

Here is a video interview I did with Conrad in mid-2007 (which also includes a visit with GigaOm’s Om Malik):