46 ms·

The desktop OEMs lament their inability to differentiate their hardware offerings. I had always wondered why some of them didn't see the opportunity to enter th

by bhawks 3y ago

The desktop OEMs lament their inability to differentiate their hardware offerings. I had always wondered why some of them didn't see the opportunity to enter the tablet space on Android as a path to differentiation. The only risk I would imagine would be the potential cannibalization of their laptop lines, but that really shouldn't stop them.

shagie 3y ago
The cannibalization is one part of it (compare Apple - https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-on-cannibalization-2015-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-on-cannibalization-201... and https://www.imd.org/research-knowledge/articles/apples-dwindling-sales-show-importance-of-self-cannibalization/ https://www.imd.org/research-knowledge/articles/apples-dwind... -- Jobs reportedly said “If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will.”) The other part of it is that android has been poorly designed for the tablet interface. For an OEM to try to make a tablet out of android they would have to invest significant software development resources into what would amount to be a fork of android (compare Amazon Fire tablets). While they likely have some software developers, they probably don't have enough to maintain that amount of development on android (and always being behind with Google preferring phones). ... and even if they were close to parity with Android (and the challenge that would imply at trying to keep their devices up to date - with the largest investment customers would expect them to last longer) you would still have difficulties with the developers for Android aren't making things that fit well in the tablet form factor (Amazon was trying to bribe/incentivize developers to write for its form factor - https://readwrite.com/amazon-give-developers-rewards-build-for-kindle-fire/ https://readwrite.com/amazon-give-developers-rewards-build-f... ). All that means that unless Google wants to do it and you're willing to go head to head with Amazon its probably not that good of an investment of time, reputation, and resources.

by bhawks 3y ago

shagie 3y ago

The cannibalization is one part of it (compare Apple - https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-on-cannibalization-2015-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-on-cannibalization-201... and https://www.imd.org/research-knowledge/articles/apples-dwindling-sales-show-importance-of-self-cannibalization/ https://www.imd.org/research-knowledge/articles/apples-dwind... -- Jobs reportedly said “If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will.”) The other part of it is that android has been poorly designed for the tablet interface. For an OEM to try to make a tablet out of android they would have to invest significant software development resources into what would amount to be a fork of android (compare Amazon Fire tablets). While they likely have some software developers, they probably don't have enough to maintain that amount of development on android (and always being behind with Google preferring phones). ... and even if they were close to parity with Android (and the challenge that would imply at trying to keep their devices up to date - with the largest investment customers would expect them to last longer) you would still have difficulties with the developers for Android aren't making things that fit well in the tablet form factor (Amazon was trying to bribe/incentivize developers to write for its form factor - https://readwrite.com/amazon-give-developers-rewards-build-for-kindle-fire/ https://readwrite.com/amazon-give-developers-rewards-build-f... ). All that means that unless Google wants to do it and you're willing to go head to head with Amazon its probably not that good of an investment of time, reputation, and resources.