Google boss points to low-end tablet for fight with Amazon Google has hinted that it's rumoured forthcoming tablet will compete with Amazon's Kindle Fire rather than high-end slates such as Apple's iPad 3. The online advertising giant's CEO, Larry Page, told financial analysts that Google believes there will be "a lot of success at the lower end" of the tablet market, Mobile Today …
Google has no chance against the mighty Amazon, especially for a low-end device whose profit margins will depend on selling content.
Sounds like a commercial suicide from the start. I hope Google's partners are aware of this, lest they fall into the same trap as Logitech and Google TV.
It's a completely different market from selling mobiles, where you have networks subsidising most of the cost.
Shipping hundreds of millions of devices each of which expands their search and related revenue, they can afford to shift hardware at margins of pennies per unit and it still improves profitability of their core business. People who thought Android was commercial suicide said the same thing and were equally wrong. Similar model to ARM - get others to do the manufacturing and marketing, sell enough devices and you only need pennies per unit. As to networks subsidising the cost that's just an up-front credit driven sale, and plenty of people like me prefer to buy mobiles outright on PAYG and then switch these onto contracts because they prefer to own their own hardware.
Here's some commercial suicide
http://www.cio.com.au/article/420836/htc_q1_profit_sinks_by_70_per_cent/
http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/28/motorola-mobility-reports-56-million-net-loss-in-q2-3-3-billi/
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/26/lg-posts-a-net-loss-for-q3-loses-ground-in-mobile-sales/
"Shipping hundreds of millions of devices each of which expands their search and related revenue, they can afford to shift hardware at margins of pennies per unit and it still improves profitability of their core business."
So, this will improve on the current situation where most of their mobile revenue comes from Apple devices?
It has to be cheap, but not necessarily cheaper.
The problem the Momo has is that you can't go into a shop any buy one easily, and this is what Google have got to sort out.
Go into any High Street electrical retailer and the iPad is there, as it is in phone shops, department stores and even supermarkets.
Google have got to get these things into all those places, get high visibility, get the advertising right, get the public aware that they exist and what they can do.
Make them high quality, a good screen, fast processor, plenty of storage, no bloatware, good connectivity, decent battery. Make them desirable.
That will create the market demand, it will also show the other Android tablet manufacturers of the way forward... stop pricing the things too high, let Apple have the premium end of the market, let Android take the value end. Google make money from advertising, not hardware sales, so, selling millions of cheap tablets makes more sense to them than a few thousand expensive ones.
Get tablets out there with standard, bloatware-free Android on them, easy to update and not slowed down by useless crap, and maybe we can also benefit from that idea being rolled in to phones.... please!
Getting them into shops is half the battle. The other half is displaying them in a way which makes them attractive and desirable. If you walk into a PC World and compare the display set up for the Apple stuff against the display set for the rest and there is no comparison. The Apple display is well lit, the tablets are in good working order and frequently reset.
By comparison the Android tablets are covered in finger prints and trashed by people dragging stuff around or the wifi is turned off or they're pin protected.
The Android tablets aren't being sold in a way conducive to actually selling them. Just improving the presentation would do wonders for sales. I hope if Google does push a tablet they remember this and don't end up with their tablet sat on a row with the other tablets.
the spec is right (7in 1024 x 600, 1.5GHz dual core, 1GB RAM, 8GB min storage, microSD expansion, HDMI & front-facing camera, Ice Cream Sandwich) and the price (target is apparently $200) then it'll sell like hotcakes
Asus get the volume, Google the add revenue and the income from the Play Store which is fast becoming a decent music/book/video sales portal (at least it will when the music store comes to Europe).
Could even outsell the Kindle
I treated myself to an Android based tablet a couple of weeks ago, and whilst I have never been a tablet worshipper I have to admit that it has changed my life.
I was never up for spending megabucks on Apple's tablet, and the Amazon Kindle Fire was received by me with what I can only describe as a lukewarm response. Paying Amazon money so that they can collect my surfing habits in their DNS servers, which they can then sell and turn around and hit me with targetted junk mail was not my idea of a good arrangement.
My Android (with the latest Ice Cream Sandwich) has instant access to literally thousands of utility programs - many of which are completely free of charge. And those I have to pay for mostly come with a cost of less than a cup of decent coffee. And I can read my Kindle documents on this tablet no problem, using the free Android Kindle application.
This may be a great idea or a big mistake. All the google phones have been flagship examples of what android can do with the best possible hardware. This is likely to be google's version of the playbook: something that just shows what a heap of bloatware Android is. I see the commercial logic, but I'm not sure this will help their (or Android's) reputation-this won't impress people the way google search or gmail or maps or earth or chrome or their online services have.
Going further: this is google's admission of defeat. Conceding that Android is the cheap option they can only give away.
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