Google boss points to low-end tablet for fight with Amazon
Fire it up
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 reports.
"[The low end] is an area we think is important and we're going to focus on," Page told market watchers.
Can the big G bring the heat?
Rumours of a low-end Nexus fondleslab have been floating around for a while now, with Asus said to be working on the design. The possibility that it would indeed go head to head with the Kindle Fire was mooted at the time, but has never confirmed by either company.
Thanks for making it so, Mr. Page. Now when can we realistically expect to see it on the shelves? ®
COMMENTS
Google don't need high margins
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.
Re: How much?
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!
Re: Google don't need high margins
@AC 14:52
I don't get it... Are you saying HTC, Moto, LG lost money because of Android? If so, how do you explain this?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/27/samsung_fourth_quarter_profit/
Crapware
Hopefully being supplied by the OS producer will mean less crapware pre-installed. Especially given that you can;t usually uninstall android crapware without rooting the device.
Re: Google don't need high margins
"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?
