“Apple Inc. is expected to take the wraps off a new iPad tablet Wednesday as more rivals are flooding the fast-growing market with competing devices,” Dan Gallagher reports for MarketWatch.
“While few analysts expect anything revolutionary in terms of features and design, most believe that Appl will have little trouble maintaining its market-dominating position for the near term,” Gallagher reports. “The iPad has quickly become a key business for Apple, surpassing the popular iPod in revenue contribution and on track to eclipse even the flagship Mac line of computers by next year. ‘All the other guys out there are all vying to get 10% of the market,’ said Brian Marshall of Gleacher & Co. ‘Apple is the de facto standard.'”
Gallagher reports, “Analysts say any rival tablet maker faces two major hurdles in trying to compete with the iPad. One, Apple’s vast ecosystem of applications through its App Store and other media content through iTunes is far ahead of any offerings by other platforms, including Google’s Android. Two, Apple has made clear that it intends to use its pricing power with suppliers — as well as its massive cash hoard of close to $60 billion — to lock in long-term supply deals and other favorable component pricing, so that it can carry higher margins at lower price points than its rivals.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
‘Apple is the de facto standard.’
Take a good long look at ^that.
I think most businesses would prefer to use Honeycomb Android tablets to get at that astoundingly large, 17 app library.
The Xoom is doomed. The Playbook will have as much use as a playbook in the NFL next season with a lockout. The Touchpad will get molested when it enters the market. One tablet will rule them all.
The poormouthers of one year ago are the bandwagon jumpers now.
Most difficult for other tablet vendors will be sales channels. Most other tablets are made by companies that made their name making mobile phones, and are used to sell thru mobile operators. Apple on the other hand does not trust those operators and has its own sales channels.
http://www.asymco.com/2011/02/28/why-operators-will-find-it-hard-to-sell-tablets
Still laughing at those who have waited almost a year now for the “second” generation of the iPad (you know the one where all the bugs have been ironed out) I laugh because they don’t know that the real first generation iPad was the first iPhone. And, no, I won’t miss the camera I missed by buying the first gen iPad.
Yeah, we can just wait for the 3rd gen. I hear it’s supposed to be amazing anyway. 😉
“…more rivals are flooding the fast-growing market with competing devices,” wrote Gallagher. Gotta disagree there. About, what, maybe five tablets are actually on the market besides iPad? Others are ANNOUNCING tablets, but the choices are still limited to iPad and a trickle of others, not a flood.