Tablets to Become Ubiquitous when Xoom is Obsolete

16 March 2010, 1:04pm

03/16/2011 - During two days at the South by Southwest festival, this author was rarely more than arms reach from a brand new iPad 2. But out there in the real world, tablets are still rare. The Motorola Xoom - the first to use Google's tablet version of the Android operating system, seems unlikely to change that. At $800, the price is likely to restrict users to the well heeled already targeted by iPad.

When will we reach the tipping point that will see that change at a panel today on the battle between Apple and Google's mobile technologies? Tablets will surge towards ubiquity, said Will Sullivan, who researches mobile web use for journalism at the University of Missouri, "once the Xoom becomes obsolete."

The Xoom's price is too high to push tablets into new, less rich corners of society. But once it is one upped by better equipped Android tablets late this year, the $800 price tag will be under severe pressure and tablet prices will start to fall, as has already happened with smart phones.

ANd the price drop will happen faster with tablets because the iPad's rivals are at less of a standing start than mobile companies were when the iPhone appeared. Google already has the operating system nd just needs hardware to run it.

It is when tablets start dipping into less premium markets, added Sullivan, that they will have a real impact on the way we use computing, and start to eat away at the wider computing industry: "Casual consumers will find you can do video chat, gaming and think maybe they don't need a laptop anymore."

Source: MIT Tech Review online, author Tom Simonite

Read the full article here

Geo: International