Must read: Windows Phone outselling iOS, ultrabooks on the rise: Estonia does hardware differently

Topic: Hardware

Discover

Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

Summary: Google is targeting Amazon with a tablet that would go for less than $199---the price of the Kindle Fire. However, integration will matter more than price.

Larry Dignan

By for Between the Lines |

Google is allegedly plotting a 7-inch branded tablet that would take on Amazon's Kindle Fire and Apple's iPad. Such a move wouldn't be all that surprising, but there are a bevy of challenges. According to DigiTimes, Google is targeting Amazon with a tablet that would go for less than $199---the price of the Fire.

On the surface, Google's move would make total sense. It needs more Android tablets in the market. The company is dying to show it can integrate services. And Google will own a hardware company once it closes the Motorola Mobility deal. In addition, Google can subsidize a cheap tablet with advertising just like Amazon does with e-commerce.

Add it up and a Google tablet is a no-brainer. DigiTimes' timelines may be off, but conceptually the rumor makes sense. On Techmeme, there's some consternation about whether Google can make a tablet without taking losses. Quality is also an open question. The cost equation is a wash for Google. If the company bought a hardware company just for patents who cares if Google loses some dough on tablets?

So what are the key issues? Google has four:

  1. Android 4.0: I've been playing with Ice Cream Sandwich on my Galaxy Nexus. I like it and it's an improvement on the phone. On a tablet, the OS could be viewed as Honeycomb. The UI is ok, but I'd hardly call it the most integrated thing. Jason Perlow did a deep dive on this issue and I see his point, which is that Ice Cream Sandwich can't carry the tablet market for Google.
  2. Integration: Amazon's win with the Kindle Fire is that it reskinned Android and integrated its e-commerce and content services. Google's services are still silos, but have improved.
  3. Late mover disadvantage. The tablet market price points are staked out between higher---Apple---and lower---Amazon. What's Google going to do go with $100 tablets? Hand tablets out like Chiclets.
  4. Marketing magic. Google's Eric Schmidt said that the search giant was planning a tablet of the highest quality. Already, Google is boxing itself in. Remember when Schmidt said Google was going to reinvent TV? Right. Simply put, the days where Google entered a market and you assumed success are over. Like Microsoft, the 800 pound Google gorilla doesn't always succeed. Does Google have the venues to really push a tablet? Sounds crazy to ask given all the ads Google could use, but it lacks a unified store front like Amazon.

Can Google deliver a tablet? Sure. Is Google willing to take a big loss on it? You bet. Will the tablet be a hit? Your guess is as good as mine. A Google tablet could be another Chromebook---a nice experiment, but not exactly a commercial success.

Topics: Hardware, Google, Laptops, Mobility, Tablets

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Talkback

45 comments
Log in or register to join the discussion

  • RE: Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

    They'd be pretty silly to launch one before they've fully taken on Motorola, but there's no doubt it will be a success - let's face it, if they simply have to accept a zero profit, to be able to take a large market share, and even a 1% profit would cover their development costs over a couple of years.<br><br>Apple get 30-40% profit on iPads; Android cannot and should not try to compete on that level until they have a product that is as sophisticated. Android pricing has been its Achilles Heel until Amazon came along and put some intelligence into the problem.<br><br>Google can take the next step. They got the timing of the Chromebook very wrong - let's hope they've thought this one through.
    Heenan73
    Reply Vote

    • Thanks for your business brillance

      The Kindle Fire is a subsidized Amazon purchasing device, I can see business all around the world looking to deploy that to their employees, Not!
      The race to the bottom is a sure fired way for China and their hordes of virtual slave labor to build everything.
      @Heenan73
      GoPower
      Reply Vote

      • They won't be back

        China is losing manufacturing jobs. They have been for over a decade. The "slaves" you refer to are not carbon-based life forms. They are machines, and they are taking the jobs away from everyone, everywhere.
        Robert Hahn
        Reply Vote

      • machines are not taking jobs away from anyone

        they are shifting what the jobs are. The amount of economic ignorance in the world is truly staggering.
        baggins_z
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

        @GoPower That is so true. A race to the bottom always eventuates in no name chinese produced crap overtaking the market. It happenned with TV's, it happenned with PC's, it is happening with hmobile handsets and will hapen with tablets. Way to go Google...you software layers are easily replaceable on your own platform....just looke at Amazon and the many chinese handsets seeling in China.
        global.philosopher
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

        @GoPower Businesses will act like all other consumers - if it has what they want, and it's cheaper, they'll likely go for it. Whether someone is subsidizing it won't change a thing, unless the functionality is affected. So business might well shy at Amazon, but I doubt Google's 'personalization' will extend to much more than additional ads. Either way, the tablet market so far is not a major business issue - and there'll be models made for that market soon enough.
        Heenan73
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

      @Heenan73 Look up opportunity cost. Is 1% profit worth it when you can invest in other araes to get 10% profit for the same amount of effort. If Google keep chasing marketshare instead of actually producing decent stuff that people want and are willing to pay to get then Google will slowly devalue its own brand and share price.<br>If marketshare is all that Google cares about then i do see much difference between them and MS at the moment.
      global.philosopher
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

        @global.philosopher And how does one achieve market share except by creating stuff people want?
        radleym
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

        @global.philosopher In general, I totally agree - but this is a special case: Google needs to get Android moving again, and keep Motorola in serious work.

        As for the comments above - virtually all devices - from Apple to the cheapest of the cheap - are made in Asia under conditions that are - at best - far from perfect. The consumer price has little or nothing to do with it; and only government action (around the world) will change that. Don't hold your breath!
        Heenan73
        Reply Vote

  • RE: Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

    Google or whatever android tab coming out in the next few months is more like 'ChromeBook 2.0'. Utter flop with few 100 or thousands in sale...

    With Win 8 Tsunami all set to arrive in 6 months time... it will be no surprise that if all android tabs have washed away and the only one left standing would the amazon 'android' tab.
    owlnet
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

      @owlnet First, some history. Microsoft was caught flat-footed with Windows Vista when [Linux] netbooks first came out. In fact, they had to sell Windows XP Home on netbooks, at a loss, just to keep Linux from running away with the market. This includes supporting Windows XP Home security updates, on netbooks, laptops *and* desktops, into 2014. Then Microsoft was caught flat-footed with Windows 7 when the iPad first came out. Thus, Microsoft's mad dash with Windows 8. However, Windows 8, a year before it's release, has been caught flat-footed with the B & N Nook Color and Amazon's Fire $200 tablets. Oops! Microsoft has lost the consumer market before Windows 8 is even fully baked.<br><br>Microsoft will be lucky to do well with Windows 8-based tablets in the enterprise market. The enterprise is their only hope.
      Rabid Howler Monkey
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

        @Rabid Howler Monkey If the enterprise is the only hope, they're in deep trouble. They've neutered .NET Framework development for metro to the point where its barely useful. Database connectivity is almost totally gone, and with app store only deployment for applications, you can't circumvent that for line of business apps.

        Someone needs to remind Sinofsky and Ballmer about "developers, developers, developers" because they aren't going to have any in the enterprise at this rate.
        Mac_PC_FenceSitter
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

        @Rabid Howler Monkey <br><br>If enterprise is Microsofts only hope, there is plenty of hope. Enterprise is about 80% of Microsofts business. There will be plenty of inexpensive PC's sold for secretaries all the way up to CEO. Apple is nowhere in this market.

        Once Win 8 is released, Win 7 will disappear, with every new PC nearly guaranteeing success. If tablets based on Intel x86 chips make it to the market, it will run all existing PC applications with minimal reprogramming.
        mstrsfty
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

        @Rabid Howler Monkey MS do have Office to leverage their business users to purchase Windows 8 tablets. Google do not have that option. Problem is that by the time Windows 8 tablets arrive iPads may be so pervasive that MS will have little chance....but they have money and determination to not let this market pass them by so I guess we will see MS pushing their tabelts for the next 10 years and gaining on average 1% marketshare each year at a huge cost to them.
        global.philosopher
        Reply Vote

    • bull..

      @owlnet
      a google tablet will be almost the final nail in M$ and apple coffins.
      The Linux Geek
      Reply Vote

      • Final tablet?

        @The Linux Geek

        Google has yet to hammer the first or even make the box.
        Bruizer
        Reply Vote

      • Right. Because Google's phones have been such a massive success

        NT
        baggins_z
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

        @The Linux Geek There is no hammer to drive it in though!
        global.philosopher
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

      @owlnet as if ..... you've been reading Alice in Wonderland again. The only M$ 'Tsunami' will be in the mediterranean, taking tides from 2 inches to 3.5. :)
      Heenan73
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Google's alleged tablet: Four huge hurdles ahead

      @owlnet Apple looks like it will always be there (whether 70% marketshare or 10%). The question is who will be the mass market generic tablet taking up the rest of the market...Android or Windows? We'll see by about mid 2013. That is not to say the iPad line will not dominate...just that historically there are generally only two mainstream competitors that dominate a market with a slew of 1 percenters taking the last 10%.
      global.philosopher
      Reply Vote
CNET Join | Log In | Privacy | Cookies Close