"iPad 2 immediately obsoletes a flood of media tablets"

[St. Germain]

While Apple fans may have wanted a few more bells and whistles, the iPad 2 announcement, specs, and pricing have undoubtedly had an effect on perceptions about the state of the tablet market.

"Apple's more aggressive iPad cost-vs-price strategy leaves no premium umbrella for commodity vendors to undercut on a spec-for-spec basis" Caris & Co.'s Robert Cihra told clients this week. "Any vendor thinking they can match Apple on that basis is "kidding themselves," he said.

While analysts at Detwiler Fenton have already characterized Xoom sales as "extremely light," the Cupertino, California-based consumer electronics maker also sent shocks through Asia.

Samsung, maker of the popular 7-inch Galaxy Tab tablet is now rethinking it's 10-inch debut in wake of Apple's announcement.

Considering the competitive launches so far, with higher price points or clumsier form factor/technical specs, our assumption of Apple's tablet market revenue share at 68% in 2011 may be conservative," Moskowitz told clients following the iPad 2 launch.

Pad 2 immediately obsoletes a flood of media tablets that are finally beginning to appear a year after the iPad's introduction," wrote Needham analyst Charlie Wolf.

"Competitive tablets can emulate the hardware features of the iPad. But none can or probably never will match its software," Wolf concluded.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/119...-xoom-rim-playbook-touchpad.htm#ixzz1FpZ9noGf

 

[urkel]

Bah. The same "analysts" said Google had no chance in the cell game.

I think Apples lead solidifies them as market leader for this year, but if they stick to their "one a year" upgrade schedule then there will be a flood of tablets from several manufacturers offering a lot of compelling products.

 

[62tele]

Bah. The same "analysts" said Google had no chance in the cell game.

I think Apples lead solidifies them as market leader for this year, but if they stick to their "one a year" upgrade schedule then there will be a flood of tablets from several manufacturers offering a lot of compelling products.

Yes, there will be a flood of competing products but not necessarily "compelling" ones. My goodness, they've had a year to react and have mostly introduced crap! It's Apple that is setting the bar and, by default, everyone else is reacting.
Apple gets it. They have developers falling over themselves to create somewhat like those who built programs for PC's. If I'm a developer i want to play at Apple's house!

 

[MRU]

The iPad will continue iPad's lead, but I think Android will close that lead dramatically this year.

I do not see the new iPad making Android obsolete.


However....

WebOS & Palm's OS which are probably under a lot of pressure to meet targets and I'm not sure I see them surviving in the long term... and the rumor of Windows 8 for Tablet devices is not hitting the market till the end of 2012, and that's a very long time away that it may be irrelevant by the time it lands unless Microsoft do a similar thing as the Nokia Windows mobile union.

 

[dukeblue91]

Bah. The same "analysts" said Google had no chance in the cell game.

I think Apples lead solidifies them as market leader for this year, but if they stick to their "one a year" upgrade schedule then there will be a flood of tablets from several manufacturers offering a lot of compelling products.

Thus far no one has come out and shipped anything compelling but tons of announcements to react to Apples iPad.
And Apple is shipping it's second product before most companies shipped one.

The galaxy was throughn together in a too small format for most and the Xoom just hit the street as 3G only with glaring omissions and loads of we'll fix it later promises.

Heck even Microsoft won't have a tablet os out till sometimes in 2012.

Sorry but the way I see it this has been an epic fail by everyone besides Apple, they got it right the first time and looks like the second time too.

 

[St. Germain]

The iPad will continue iPad's lead, but I think Android will close that lead dramatically this year.

I do not see the new iPad making Android obsolete.

What are Android's "best hopes" this year? I thought that was the Xoom, but that appears to be a very niche product with light sales so far.

I'm all for competition, but unless these manufacturers want to take a big loss on their products, it's unlikely any of them will gain enough traction to seriously put a dent in the iPad. I don't think it can be a "death by a thousand arrows" thing. I think to capture the mainstream audience (which doesn't read sites like this) one Android tablet will have to stand out. Android cell phones started really taking off when they started to be given away by cell providers. That's not going to happen with a tablet.

 

[fertilized-egg]

Bah. The same "analysts" said Google had no chance in the cell game.

A completely different scenario. In the "cell game," Android didn't slow down Apple much. Maybe they'll do that in the future but so far Apple have had enough trouble meeting their own demand. What Android did do though, was completely killing off Windows Mobile 6 while slowing down the adoption of Palm, Blackberry and Nokia Symbian phones.

A lot of this had to do with the traditional cell phone retail channel which is very heavily controlled by carriers and manufacturers meeting carriers' demand. Even if Google released a better Android, if carriers didn't want to push it, that would've been it. However the traditionally carrier-friendly manufacturers like Moto, Samsung, etc all adopted Android fairly quick and that's where Android truly took off. Also the requirements of customers is extremely varied in this arena and the carrier subsidy is critical to say the least.

This is why Motorola's first attempt with the Xoom through Verizon was understandable. Their success with the Droid line up relied a lot on the largest carrier's strong marketing muscle and being successful by closely co-operating with the carrier is what resurrected the dying Motorola. It's the game they knew how to play.

Unfortunately for them I just don't think the tablet is anything comparable to the phone game. The subsidy is far less and many people simply don't care to have monthly payment plan on their tablets. They just buy it off a store and use it like a laptop without having the dataplan attached. Android's biggest strength was, other than its technical merits, its "openness" to the carriers and manufacturers dictated by the nature of the cellphone market. Without that I just don't think they can replicate the same success.