[Discuss] Google's Nexus 7

[Richard Pieri]

On 7/10/2012 2:46 PM, Shirley Márquez Dúlcey wrote:
 > 1. I'm not sure they could do a Nexus 10 at $279, in part because
 > people's expectations of a tablet that size are higher.

Google would need to significantly undercut Apple's pricing in order to 
win consumers away from iPad.  Motorola Xoom at the same prices as iPad 
for more stuff is an abysmal failure.  You can get them for less than 
half that now and hardly anyone wants one.  Galaxy Tab 10 at similar 
premium prices isn't doing much better (Apple's legal attacks aren't 
helping).  Google needs something stupefyingly better than iPad for iPad 
money or something almost as good as iPad for under half the price.


 > (Brief aside about the competition: the screen resolution of the Windows

Surface isn't competition for iPad.  Apple is getting out of personal 
computers.  It's not even "Apple Computer, Inc." any more.  It's "Apple, 
Inc."  Microsoft Surface is Microsoft moving personal computers into the 
mobile market and setting the bar for OEMs.  iPad is a content sales and 
delivery appliance; Surface is the next generation of ultra-portable 
workhorse.  They are superficially very similar devices but the design 
and marketing philosophies behind them are very, very different.


 > 3. Who says that won't be Google's next product?

I say it.

I mentioned Palm previously.  What really killed Palm was the separation 
of software and hardware divisions.  Palm as a whole worked because the 
software and hardware reference implementations were designed and built 
together.  Splitting Palm left the hardware folks without access to a 
developing OS and left the software folks without hardware to run on.

Google is in a similar situation with Android.  They've kept up with 
reference smartphones but until now they haven't had a hardware 
reference for tablets.  That's what Nexus 7 really is.  Like Surface it 
isn't an anything killer.  It's a reference platform, a bar for OEMs, a 
showcase for what Google says an Android tablet should be.

Take it with a grain of salt, three bucks and your little starschmucks 
coffee because I've been wrong before.

-- 
Rich P.