“The Black Friday promotional support for tablets seems notably weak – Amazon’s price aggression may have been the final nail in the coffin of several major tablet projects,” Tero Kuittinen writes for Forbes.
“Old school phone vendors like Motorola, Samsung, HTC and RIM are staring at an early death of their tablet projects as Apple, Amazon and Barnes & Noble basically split the market,” Kuittinen writes. “Tablets were supposed to be the new gadget category that could have helped Best Buy, Target, Walmart and others to create a vibrant new consumer electronics category as video game consoles, GPS devices and laptops are weak this winter.”
Kuittinen writes, “Instead, the tablets may now be a category that siphons off consumer spending to Apple stores, Amazon website and B&N bookstores… The prominent ads for Kindle devices on Amazon website combined with strong television ads for iPad and Nook mean that much of the oxygen in the category are consumed by one high-end and two low-end devices, at the very extremes of the price spectrum… This could accelerate the erosion of Blackberry devices radically. The Playbook tablet range did not have to be a huge success, but if it dies entirely, it blows a hole in the corporate viability of the Blackberry handset ecosystem. The current consensus projections for RIMM assume that corporations won’t start ripping out RIM’s servers in 2012. That is no longer a given as many corporations need a smartphone/tablet mix for their enterprise device mix. The Amazon tablet is hardly a good fit for enterprises – but if it manages to kill off tablets like Playbook in the consumer market, it leaves the entire corporate tablet market wide open for Apple.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “David E.” for the heads up.]
Two of my Blackberry friends surprised me the other day when they said they were getting iPads at Christmas. The Playbppk is a bad joke, and they don’t want to get Android tablets, so the iPad it is.
I don’t get why they include the iPad in the “very extremes of the price spectrum”. Which end are they talking about? I think it’s moderately priced, and closer to the cheap side of the spectrum if anything.
I did a quick search for how much tablet PC’s costs before the iPad came out: $800 for a lowend Asus tablet pc, and $1600 for a higher end HP tablet PC. Compared to what came before it, the iPad is actually extremely cheap (and a way better value).
You can’t compare the tablet world to what it was 2 years ago. Today, iPad is the undisputed champion, and even though some other tablets are more expensive than the iPad (I saw 8 on Bestbuy.com, including the 64 GB Eee Slate for $1418.98, and those laptops with the spin around/lay flat screen – upwards to $2332.99). As such, it is seen as the high end. Most people look at the price points of iPad at $499-$829, and say, “Okay so if that’s what I would pay for the best, could I save a little and get something not as great, but good enough?” Therefore iPad becomes “the high end” tablet. Your right, it is a well-priced, almost middle of the “category” price point.
Also, even Bestbuy “gets it” (sort of). The category is labeled “Tablets and iPad”. It’s really two categories.
“That is no longer a given as many corporations need a smartphone/tablet mix for their enterprise device mix. The Amazon tablet is hardly a good fit for enterprises – but if it manages to kill off tablets like Playbook in the consumer market, it leaves the entire corporate tablet market wide open for Apple.”
‘Here I come to save the day!’ ‘There’s no need to fear! Apple iPad is here.’
Look! Up in the sky!! Is it a bird? Nah, just Twitter. Is it a plane? Nah, just X-Plane iPad app. It’s Super iPad (not to be confused with Maxi-Pad). Able to gesture smoothly and resize with ‘pinch to zoom’. More powerful than a Samsung Tab 1 GHz dual core NVIDIA Tefra 2 processor. Faster than the lifespan of competitor’s tablets.
Disguised as mild mannered iPad 2 on display at you local Apple store…
Apple should aim for these targets for next year (if all rumors have been true):
$299 7″ iPad mini
$399 iPad 2
$499 iPad 3
I bet Apple can wing it (taking a hit with lowered margins on the low end iPad mini segment but making up for it on the higher end iPad 2 & 3).. in this scenario Microsoft won’t be able to get ANY traction, Rim’s Playbook would die and any market left available for Amazon and Nook Android devices will be cannibalized by Apple’s iOS products.
Not sure that makes good business sense for Apple. They would be giving a lot of the profit margin to the finger sandpaper manufacturers.
The business sense is solely for market share and the halo effect. If people can use the iPod touch fine, I’m sure doubling the screen real estate won’t hurt anyone in an iPad mini.
Apple has NEVER gone for market share over profit, and they aren’t going to do that now, especially since all their products are already the most popular. You only have to lower your price when no one wants to buy your product. Demand for Apple stuff is high–price will not drop.
Times are a changin 😉
I’m sure Apple knows where the puck (and economy) is going.
You Americans all think the whole world is having an economic crisis, don’t you.
Aside from America and half of the ECM, the rest of us are doing just fine.
I don’t think an iPad mini is a good idea, but keeping the iPad 2 around for a lower price (like iPhone) is a great idea.
It’s because of the timing. Apple isn’t hurt by the economy as much as PC venders are because Apple’s customers tend to be those with more money. If we had the same economy that we had 10-15 years ago today then the story would be much different. Sure Apple would most likely have the lead but there would be a much bigger pie to share.
Just wait for it. Not to much longer and the media will declare the tablet market dead, the iPad just a toy, and throw all support to light weight plastic lap tops as the “new” pc market to look forward to. If you can’t beat them, spend the money to divert attention.
The iPod-MP3 wars, the iPhone-smartphone wars (still hot), the iPad-tablet wars (cooling fast, apparently).
If you give any credence to the rumors over the last month, the I-finally-cracked-it-TV war is around the corner.
They’ve all been quite entertaining. I look forward to the next.
The media have declared many things about tech in the last five years. Most of them ignorant, cynical, and self-serving, and all of them wrong. Because Apple is like no other corporation. Conventional corporations are controlled by Boards of Directors making market calculations and limiting risks by diversifying product lines. Apple has assumed leadership in tech by ignoring this formula completely. It’s the one corporation with soul—injected into it by Steve Jobs.
MDN: “There is no tablet market, only an iPad market.”
Kuittinen just doesn’t get it yet.