In
Google's most recent earnings report, CEO Larry Page said of "lower priced
tablets that run Android" that "we definitely have a belief that
there is going to be a lot of success at the lower end of the market as well,
with lower priced products that will be very significant. And it's definitely
an area we think is important and are quite focused on."
Analysts
like those at Droid Life believe Page was alluding to the 7-inch "Nexus
tablet" that Google's reportedly working on. This piece on The Week sums
up the reports, including the expected July launch date. But it's worth
pointing out that the tablets at "the lower end of the market" which
are currently having "a lot of success" aren't the generic-brand
Target specials, or even the lowest end Samsung Galaxy Tabs. They're the Barnes
and Noble Nook Color (and Nook Tablet) and Amazon's Kindle Fire, neither of
which run what Page called "the full Google version of Android" but
both of which have sold in the millions, and are the only "tablets"
that have any mainstream mindshare or marketshare aside from Apple's iPad.
Here's
a look at the reasons why, and the ways Google may be pursuing an identical
strategy.
Cheaper
price and smaller form factor than the iPad
This
part is basically non-controversial. No $399-$499, 10-inch tablet has managed
to successfully compete with the iPad, if by "successfully compete"
you mean "drawn any significant percentage of buyers away from it."
But the Kindle and Nook have, because they aren't just generic-brand iPads;
they're iPad-like devices that less-affluent buyers can actually afford, and
that people who already have an iPad can pick up in addition to it. For about
the same price as an iPod Touch, you get a device with a much larger screen,
that's tied into the same e-book and media store you may already use on your
black-and-white e-reader.
Integrated
content store
"Content"
means more than just apps. It means games, music, movies, and e-books. Of the
three successful tablet companies so far, all three run their own stores, and
Google's rebranding of the Android Market as "Google Play" shows its
desire to put a Google-owned content ecosystem at the forefront of the
experience. Which means that just like how Amazon's store and the iTunes store
are wired into the Kindle and iPad all over the place, the Google Play store
may be too if Google can make its own tablet. Which may involve ...
A
custom OS or UI skin
As
Charlie Kindel opines in a blog essay, Google will abandon Android, by which he
means the Android brand and "generic" Android design. Instead,
something more like the Kindle Fire or Nook Color is likely, which may not even
be Android branded but might be Google Play branded instead. (Too bad they
can't call it the Google Play Station.)
End-to-end
control of the experience
Amazon,
Apple, and Barnes and Noble all control the entire official experience you have
with their tablets, including the software, the hardware, and retail. (Amazon
and Barnes and Noble use Google's Android code, but because it's open-source
they can modify it all they want.) Now that Google's bought Motorola, expect it
to start building its own tablets for this initiative; if not at first, then
soon afterwards.
The
biggest problem for Google, with this regard, is its lack of a retail presence.
The company tried selling Nexus One phones directly from its website a couple
of years ago, and didn't do all that well with it. Worse, Google Play lags
behind its competitors' retail cachet as well. No one thinks of Google the same
way that they do of Apple or Amazon ... but that may be exactly how Google
thinks that it needs to be seen, in order to survive the decline of its search
business.
View orginal artical here- Android
