Very interesting post, especially as the Motorola Xoom finishes its first week of sales.
Why operators will find it hard to sell tablets | asymco
When the iPad was announced and ultimately released, a very common phrase thrown about was that it’s “a large iPhone.”
More accurately, the iPhone is “a small iPad.”
Even though iPhone came to market first in 2007, the iPad in its current iteration, has been in development at Apple for a decade and predated the iPhone.
As you should read in Horace’s (@asymco) post, because of the differences between the cell phone and consumer electronics markets, the iPad looks to be much tougher competition that its smaller sibling.
I’ve already noted the odd marketing and placement issues the Xoom has. The fact that both Verizon and Best Buy sell the Xoom and that there is (not yet) a wifi-only version is sure to confuse people.
At a Verizon Wireless store last week, I asked several times if the $799 Xoom required a contract. It does not, but there has been a lot of confusion among interested parties about that not-so-minor detail.
That doesn’t bode well.
On the bright side, the NOOKcolor and Kindle both follow the retail/consumer electronics approach and have each had success. However, they have the exclusive focus of large marketing budgets behind them.
In addition to the Xoom, Verizon and Best Buy both sell iPads and iPhones. Best Buy also sells a range of other Apple products and devotes a branded space to its Apple products.
The Xoom is relegated to the netbook corner.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see if iPad’s competition will come from head-on tablets (like the Xoom and other Honeycomb entrants) or from common use case devices like the NOOKcolor and Kindle.
Find the comments.
Quick update: Right after I published, I realized I’d forgotten an interesting question. Even though Google failed to reshape the carrier industry by selling the N1 directly, would an Android tablet sold directly to consumers do better? Perhaps Google will fast-follow if they see Honeycomb tablets struggling. Combined with Google TV and the coming-soon Chrome books, a Google tablet would complete and interesting stable of consumer electronics. Food for thought.
