Google 'quite focused' on low-end Android tablets as iPad controls high end

You keep focusing on that "low end" buddies. Look how well those netbooks did.

It's interesting how the iPad is suddenly considered the "high-end" when not even the cheap-junk manufacturers could come out with their own similar-size tablet at a lower price-point.

So now Google is simply saying "We'll make junk like the netbooks were at prices that will keep us at the bottom of the barrel."

Jeez, folks just don't learn.

Google realizes that it's not a tablet market but an iPad market at the high end and retail market can only be found at the low end. Watch out for Google to leverage their Android OS to squeeze out the competition much like Microsoft did with its competitors in the 80s and 90s.

Yeah... If Apple's products can be considered as high end (yes, they are), imagine IF Apple to set an even lower price for perhaps, smaller screen size iPad. Soon, they will give these Androids for free.

They probably have already.

What can Google do to leverage... they are already giving the OS away? I think a good shoot-out at the bottom end will make manufacturers turn out some real crap. When it's all over the general public will have had their little fling with owning a pice of junk, sober up, and buy an Apple iPad.

I remember the electric typewriter battles of the 1970s and 1980s. The IBM Selectric was king and sold for over $1000. No one ever unseated them, finally IBM saw the end of the typewriter market coming and sold out to Lexmark for a huge bundle. They did the same with the PCs when they saw that market turning to crapola and made a bundle selling that off to Levenco.

Back on the typewriter story, IBM held their dominance in the electric typewriters for around 30 years by (1) incremental improvements, (2) major improvements (3) leading with features that were protected with patents, (4) having an aura of quality and desirability that none of the competitors could wrap around themselves, (5) maintaining a high degree of customer service, and finally, they owned the high end of the market where all the high margins were.

It's interesting how Apple has been able to duplicate that so well today.

Yeah Google, continue to aim at the end of the barrel. This is called real loser leadership.
Jeez, Page is destroying everything Erich Schmitt built.

Everything that Eric Schmidt built?

Now that's a laugh...

LOL.
Android tablets couldn't compete with the force of the iPad.
Google is now claiming low-end vs. high-end tablets.
Whatever happened to the phrase: "iPad killer". There were several of them that were over hyped. Yet they couldn't compete with iPad, hence "low-end." Or substandard quality.

without a subsidizing model for tablets, the tablet market will be more like the mp3 player market.

Many have foolishly challenged the iPad so far, and all have failed, spectacularly miserably in most cases. When it came time to separate the men from the boys and the amateurs from the pros, nobody was left standing next to the mighty Apple, who crushed the competition like the little ants and peasants that they are.

This is like an admission of defeat from Google. They're basically saying that they have zero chance at competing with the iPad, so they're going to focus their efforts towards making low end junk for low end people. The low end market is already saturated with many different tablets and Google's tablet will simply be another low end Android tablet in a sea of low end Android tablets.

And since when is a $500 device considered high end? This is not Somalia.

Look for the iPad 2 to hang around and drop to $199 for 16gb in an answer to the "low end" android junk. This aggression will not stand, man.

The race to the bottom, hmm, how well does that work? Have they not seen what happened to Dell, HP, Acer etc??

It's not even good for the end user, they have to sift through piles of craptasic products and generally end up with a terrible user experience. Not to mention the living hell it becomes to support this crap in business, lol.

Ah, Google is now officially lowering their standards for Android. Took a while, but I can't say I didn't see that coming. They should buy Acer to build the things for them, they have years of experience going bust trying to make crappy cheap products.

Everyone who ever used the words 'iPad killer' now quietly pretends they forgot about, just like they forgot about "it's just a big iPod touch", "it is named like a sanitary product", "it doesn't have Flash", or "it is way overpriced".

There's still some people left complaining about lack of ports, and walled gardens and such, but for the most part, the haters have ran out of arguments.

Don't underestimate Google. Their ultimate goal is to be king of the lower end tablet marker and move on up. At that point they own the software and hardware and will have a little ecosystem going. Google does not have the infrastructure to compete with Apple but they could easily be king of the tablet underworld and inch their way up-at least that's what they'll try to do. Google by nature has to be more sinister and cunning to surreptitiously obtain user data to sell online adds. This spills over into everything they do. So keep your eyes on Google.

You forgot the Chromebooks. The ones that are now "adopting" a "more Windows-like" interface....


1. Google's never had any success in hardware. They had NO live support for their first directly-marketed phone. Period. And now they've bought a cell phone company that's had its own marketing and support woes and is far from being the leader in the field.

2. Their app and other product ecosytem is inferior not only to Apple's, but also Amazon's (and their forked version of of Android which takes people right to that system). And for tablet apps, it looks it'll be inferior to Microsoft's within a year of Win 8's launch, if not AT launch. MS looks to have three targets - most of the consumer range including the basic iPad range with WOA and the slightly bulkier but full Wintel business tablet - a segment in which they've repeatedly blown chunks - but they ARE taking a completely fresh whack at it. It might have a decent niche - or not. Hard to make the odds.

3. They make no money on the OS itself, though they're forced to spend a lot on iterating it. Ironically MS makes money on each copy of Android sold because of patent infringements, and Apple's bidding to do the same. How funny and poetic is that??

4. In integratedhardware/software terms, they're caught where Gil Amelio was caught at Apple before Jobs returned, only in a much worse position - if they make devices (and they certainly own a device maker now) they're competing with their own OEM's to whom they depend on licensure for nearly 100% of their market share at present. If they quit licensing, they lose all their outside manufacturers, who need to be in the tab market and so will go with Windows. And at least Apple was still selling more Macs than any of their clone makers (if less than all of them) when Steve returned.

Apple voluntarily went from 10% of the PC market to 3% to end licensing. (In retrospect you see just how gutsy he was in making his bets.) Google would start at a tiny base of the Android market and no rep or cult following for any physical product bearing a Google label and not much more for Moto mobile.

So no "owning" of either "the majority" of the hardware OR software in sight. In fact, because of the open source provisions, another company like Amazon may end up doing better iterations of Android than Google. Or Samsung. To paraphrase Shakespeare (Marc Antony on Caesar), "You have heard it said they are ambitious..." Or....??

That's a lot of mountains to climb!


Great observation!


And I think you may be onto something important as well....

Except that there's even more at play. Unlike Apple's original media players, tablets are already becoming big in the Enterprise, medicine and all of business as well as education. The iPad's had great F500 acceptance (and Macs are almost mainstream there now). Plus IT still loves MS's breadth of product for their needs and their investment in it (software, equipment, and staff) - and one thing Win 8 will have is all kinds of hooks into all of Mr. Softie's huge Server, Exchange, Windows 365, Cloud and other Enterprise infrastructure - which is another mature and entrenched ecosystem, if of a different nature than Apple's - and Office will likely be on every tablet. And Google has no rep over that way to speak of. Google Docs, Google Schmocks.

Another big wall for Google to climb.

The consumer who adopts the iPad typically invests in App Store, iBooks content. Most of this content can be downloaded to the iPhone without additional charges. So, an iPad owner should typically stick to iPhone.

I would expect that the addition of Siri to the iPad, plus integration with apps like Yelp, Netflix, etc will encourage iPad owners to stick with the iPad. Even vice versa.

However, I expect Android to be there for folks who can afford the bare minimum only... like a 7 in model with a cheap screen/camera, short life battery, WiFi only, used mostly for surfing the web, email, free apps, Skype. There are hundreds of millions in the poverty level.

Netbooks sold very well and were really cool.
However, marketing soon realized it threatened the laptop business and started pushing in huge HARD DISKS and Windows.

The only real netbooks disappeared in a few weeks (the people who got lucky still use their netbooks), and marketing started selling "small laptops" as "netbooks". Obviously, there was no real market for that, and when the superior iPad (for the read-mail-and-watch-video market) came, these small-laptop-and-pretend-netbooks died.

As far as I know, the real netbooks sold all their stock and had more demand than they could supply, just like the iPad. Marketing just sucks hard. I recently tried to get a netbook, based on the following spec:
small flashdisk, great battery, less than 200€, less than 10 inches screen, les than a kg, 9 hours of battery

This was called the EEE701 a few years ago.
It is not possible to find a modern version of this... but you can find tons of 350€ smallish-laptops with a 200GB rotating hard disk, which is NOT a netbook. Marketing then go and explains this doesn't sell well (of course, it's crap), and there is a need for more expensive laptops.

News update: iPad ate your cheap-market, and Macbook Air is eating your medium market, and Macbook Pro is eating your high-end market. What is still needed is a "throwable" machine, typically for going on holidays with, or taking to university where it might get stolen, or just leaving lying around in the kitchen where tea might get spilled over it, or taking to the beach, all places where I'm not taking my 1500€ Macbook Air or my 600€ iPad.

If those guys started selling high volumes of modern EEE701-class netbooks for 120 euros, they'd easily find a market. They'll never do, they're too busy protecting a "market" they're going to lose to Apple eventually.

Netbooks were a commercial failure. Incredibly low margins and they had the effect of destroying the low end Notebook market. Now they want to do the same with tablets, epic failure followed by epic failure. Maybe they are hoping the the failure is going to be SO epic that it will be a win?

It's a good move. Don't have pride. Just admit that Apple owns the high end and go fight Kindle. Of course Apple is not magic and undefeatable, they just have a lead that's all. Fight them later.

"Obviously, there's been a lot of success on some lower-priced tablets that run Android, maybe not the full Google version of Android."

Yeah, like much of the volume (at least in the USA) - Kindle Fire, Nook, etc. - is in "Android" tablets that have nothing to do with Google, use none of Google's services, and earn Google not a penny. This is bad news for Google, not good news.

Way to spin.

Yes indeed Apple iPhone and iPad are "High-End" performance items, but at a very reasonable price. And with IOS nothing comes close to the user friendly integration, speed, and reliability.
Great to see that Googi, with annual revenue equaling less than one quarter Apple profit, brings "The Evil" to at least considering wasting too much money.

Hey Slappy, - maybe Apple is Not so Doomed after all!

And if you have any influence at Sammy, please remind them they promised me two RS-232 ports on their Tablet. One for my ASR Teletype Terminal, and one for my Burpy Punch.

Like the mp3 market, Apple will release a mini iPad when the time is right. Maybe 2012 is the year?

There is nothing stopping Apple coming out with a lower end iPad that would wipe the floor with these low end Android toys. Call it a larger Touch or a small iPad, it doesn't matter. It would be part of the Apple Eco system and of the same high quality as iPads and Macs. Many of us have been against this as was Steve initially. I think we are approaching a time and level of maturity in the tablet market place where Apple entering the lower end is now right. It would not detract from full sized and hopefully even larger iPads, rather it would cater to the lower end of the market who currently have no choice but an Android box.

wonder if Apple fanbois said the same thing about Android phones taking over the smartphone market share.

Want to reconsider the term 'taking over' in that context? Try looking at profit margins along with volume. Ask HTC about how well volume worked out for them.

I already said "marketshare," not "profit share." BMW's profit margin may be higher than Toyota's, but Toyota is the first in units produced / sold globally.

Furthermore, Samsung is #1 in smartphone sales (sold or shipped) and their profit has been growing - in fact, according to their Q1 earning report, Samsung Electronic's profit doubled while their overall net revenue went up 20% - all attributed to growth in smartphone sales.

Makes perfect sense except Microsoft made (and makes) money on every copy of the OS sold. So selling a lot of copies gets them a lot of money.

Google giving away lots of copies makes them zero. Given that Microsoft makes $5 per Android copy (at least in their deal with HTC) they probably make more money from Android than Google.

And if the manufacturers suddenly remove Google ads from the devices they're screwed - see Samsung's new ad platform. And Kindle.

Anyway my prediction is nobody will buy those low end POS tablets, and by the time *good* tablets can be produced at $250 Apple will be there and eat everyone's lunch. They did it with the iPod...

I am really surprised at how well Google has kept up in the tech department, and how badly they have messed up the strategic element - they've lost control of the platform! I am a techie so I can see how this would happen to me, but I kind of thought Google would be smarter than that...

Winning!

Google makes next to no money on the OS they give away for free. Further there's now lots of low end Android devices on the market and they make the bulk of those activations. They're not used as smart phones they're just purchased as nicer low-end phones. iOS leads in app sales (you don't want to know by how much), in internet usage (by 2x or more I seem to remember), and in companies that were founded based only on one platform product and 2 years later sold for $1Bn.

So... I don't think anyone at Apple is sad about the smart phone market share. If Apple created 20 iOS devices that sold for $100, they'd probably rack up the numbers too. But they stick with the high end, and with making 70% of the entire industry's profits. They don't want to get greedy, I guess

Just as an observation. Using the long held Apple comparison of BMW is pretty funny. How many years did we Apple users point out the similarity between BMW and Apple in this regard when discussing the mass of cheap low end PCs out there.

Regarding Sammy, I hope Apple can shift away from being Sammy's largest client soon. Theft on the scale of Google's Android shouldn't lead to reward who ever uses it.

Excellent points.

You said 'taking over' hence my pointing out volume alone doesn't mean 'taking over', spin it anyway you like. HTC already discovered this.

Re: the bolded:
Actually, Google may be losing money on Android. A week or so ago, there as an article stating that 80% of Google's mobile revenues were from iOS devices. Google might actually make MORE money if they didn't have Android devices out there (that is, if a reasonable percentage of Android purchasers had bought an iOS device instead.

Meanwhile, the Tab discounting and subsidies are already in full force:

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/s...laxy_0411-LI-1

Exactly! Google Android isn't inherently bad. In fact, Google Android is quite competitive with Apple iPhone and superior in a few ways (I am looking at you, Maps). I can forgive Google's iterative approach to improving features such as the slight improvements in the last four releases to finally achieve the simplicity and uniformity Apple iOS demonstrated in the first-and-only release of Cut-and-Paste.

Google has arguably the worst business strategy in the history of mankind, especially for such a well-funded entity. The major issues with Google Android are virtually all the result of a lack of integrated hardware-software and pitifully integrated ecosystem.

Battery Life
Bloatware
Lack of Software Updates
Task Management

I wonder what Google offers these day to iOS users that Apple isn't able or won't soon be able to match other than search ... Maps they are well on the way to I'm sure, maybe they are looking at search or partnering. If only Apple could remove that 80% from Google's revenue stream ... Apple didn't start his war, Schmidt did.

I'm glad that you realize that Googles doesn't make money on OS. Google is a search company - and most of their products are given away for *free*.


Your point being? I use my smartphone (3 iPhones so far and just recently Galaxy S2) as more like a PDA than a phone. On average I make 4 calls per month (plus some texting). Google doesn't care what phones you carry or how you use them as long as they depend on Google search, maps, email, docs, etc, etc.


Really? so what's Apps Store's share of Apple's overall revenue/profit? 1% or 2%? Woowwww..... *yawn*


uh? Apple makes plenty of low-end goods like minipod, Mac mini; there is no guarantee that Apple won't release cheaper iPhones for pre-paid or underdeveloped market. Sure, at the moment, both iOS and Android are gaining at the expense of RIM's & Nokia's. In another word, I don't think Cook is losing sleep over iPhones/Android sales, but, at the rate Android is growing now, they will have to come with something much much better to maintain the market / profit share

I really don't understand why Google would be interested in the low end of anything, unless it hopes that their low end deep penetration (oh stop it!) will eventually spread upwards. Google's business model is based on advertising and advertisers don't like low end, period.

Not sure what your point is. Apple's success is based on marketing, whereas BMW's on their engineering, product performance, etc. It's not just aesthetics that attracts BMW buyers. That perhaps explains why Jobs's NeXT failed to gain any significant market share in the Unix market back in the 90's, and why Apple, to this date, is conspicuously absent in lucrative high end server market, now dominated by HP.

Samsung's largest client is Sony, not Apple, but with Sony losing billions, the rank might change this year.

I installed Android 4.0 on a $99 HP Touchpad (RIP WebOS) and except for some useful network utilities that Apple won't allow, I'm not impressed by the byzantine ICS UI or the quality of apps, especially those that are have a far superior iOS version.

it will be the race to the bottom yet again, it will destroy brands in the process. What we will see is a bunch of low end android products and lots of dissatisfied customer and rest happy with Apple.

Apple won the switch to Mac since it tapped in the bad customer experience, in this case people know the better experience and then experience the bad only to help promote Apple yet again. Any people will wonder why they switched.