Laptops and mobile phones have saturated the consumer market to the point that one brand is now fairly comparable to the next (even if some come with pearly, white cases and sarcastic software), but the race to be the next big tablet in circulation is just heating up thanks to the recent release of the aptly named Kindle Fire.
The device stole over a million in sales from frontrunner iPad 2 during the holiday season (Apple still reported an estimated 13 million iPads sold during the last quarter), even though it didn’t hit store shelves until late November. But Apple and Amazon shouldn’t start divvying up sales just yet; there is another contender and it just might beat them both.
Does it ever seem like Google has their hands in everything? As if the world’s most popular search engine wasn’t enough, they’ve also got a music service, a cloud network, and a social media site that could give Facebook a run for its money. And those are just a few of Google’s virtual services.
They’ve also released a laptop and they recently launched a phone for their Android platform, but in a tablet world where only two names are really being bandied about (and only one until recently), the upcoming Google Nexus (its name in line with the Galaxy Nexus phone) could really make a splash.
Will Google Nexus tablet will compete with the iPad, the Kindle, or both?
Although there has been a lot of speculation since the tablet was announced last March concerning what types of features will be included in Google’s offering to the genre, only a few facts have hit the airwaves.
While Google CEO Eric Schmidt would say only that the tablet will be of the highest quality and that the release is scheduled to occur within the next six months (this as of December), he said little else on what might be included.
However, Taiwan-based website DigiTimes stated that sources within the supply chain confirmed that the 7-inch tablet will hit the market at a price point of around $200 (although there has been no verification of this). These pieces of information would seem to be contradictory, though.
Amazon has made no secret of the fact that they’re going to lose money on the sales of their beefed-up eReader. Their goal is not so much to compete with Apple as to make their money on the back end through media downloads of content like books, music, and movies.
Apple’s tactic, on the other hand, has always been to provide the best gadgetry on the market and to turn a profit with their hardware, although they probably also do pretty well with sales on iTunes to those downloading for the iPad 2.
It is uncertain which company’s footsteps Google will follow in. Perhaps they’ll do what they’ve often done in the past and blaze their own trail. When you consider that there are already tablets on the market running on the Android OS (the Samsung Galaxy, for example) and that Google recently acquired Motorola (which makes the Xoom), you can probably draw some conclusions about the type of product they might release.
But keep in mind that Google is famous for releasing hardware as a sort of a template for others to mimic when it comes to properly utilizing their software.
Their main goal may be only to create a reference to ensure that the potential of their money-making franchise (in this case the Android platform) is available to consumers. One thing is certain, though; Google won’t be giving away tablets any more than they would offer free cell phones. Even if their price point is low, there will be a long-term earning strategy behind it.
