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Dell Kills Streak 7, Bails On Android Tablets
An anonymous reader writes with this news from Network World: "Dell has yanked the Dell Streak 7 tablet computer from its online stores, quietly acknowledging the failure of the Android device to catch on with consumers as the company redirects its tablet focus to combination work/play products. Word of the Streak 7's disappearance follows by a few months the death of the Streak 5, which debuted in summer 2010. The dual-core processor-powered Dell Streak 7 became available in January, marketed as a 4G wireless tablet via T-Mobile's network. Now Dell is directing would-be Streak buyers to Android and Windows Phone smartphones, and pushing a line of Windows Phone tablets for business."
http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/5/2612610/dell-were-not-backing-away-from-android
I'm sure it had nothing to do with the almost complete lack of consumer interest in Android tablets.
This quarter the iPad is hitting 65% market share. That's a lot, but remember it started the year in the high 90s. The only thing that might keep Android from being the top tablet platform in 2013 is Windows 8, and that's a long shot.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Are you kidding? Some are predicting the Kindle fire to sell 3.9 million this quarter http://recombu.com/news/amazons-kindle-fire-sales-second-place-to-ipad-set-to-vaporise-other-android-tab-sales_M15995.html, and others are predicting Apple to sell in the order of 13 million iPads http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-11-28/tech/30449262_1_ipads-piper-jaffray-apple-stores .100,000 Xooms is less than a rounding error. To put it in perspective, Windows mobile 7 has more of the phone market than any of the non-kindle android tablets have of the tablet market.
On a site with incredible ignorance about business, this one is exceptionally ignorant. If you think that Apple is making a lot of more from the App Store, you've been listening to random IT fanboys instead of paying attention to the business facts. The App Store is hugely important to Apple's ecosystem, but there's very, very little profit in it, as compared to hardware profit. You're just plain wrong about this.
However, Apple makes so much money off of the App store that they could undoubtedly sell the hardware at a loss and still profit overall. They just don't need to - at least not at this point.
According to the Q3 earning reports, iTunes generates 5% of the profits, with the iPad hardware sales generating 21% . iTunes pfofits are about half music so lets be generous and say 2.5% of the company profits are app sales. Given 47% of the sales being iPhones, and asuming equal ratios, that means about 1.117% of the company profits are due to iPad app sales.
Selling the iPad at a loss would cut an insane amount of profit and generate nearly no extra income, not to mention that a lower price point encourages people with singier pockets to buy it, meaning the app sale percentage will likely go further down.
So apple does need to sell the iPad at a profit.
How can Dell, HP, Motorola, HTC compete in this scenario, when the only thing they can make money off of is the hardware?
Those companies may get a chance once Windows 8 comes out. If managed properly, it may fare much better than the phone offerings. Microsoft will have office for Windows 8 Metro. That alone will surely encourage many consumers that shy from tablets due to productivity concerns, a market Android Tablets does not cover.
You are getting this 65% market share from android manufacturers SHIPPING numbers. Those tablets aren't being sold. Who cares if Android manufacturers shipped 35% of the tablets out there when almost none (aside from the fire) were sold?
Here it is in handy picture form. Anyone who thinks Apple sells devices cheap to make it up on software and content is grossly misinformed.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
In making your rant against Android fanboys (apparently anyone who doesn't have a problem with their Android phone is a fanboy...) you come across as the worst stereotype of an Apple fanboy.
When you show me one Android device that doesn't have OBVIOUS UI lag in scrolling, then ... and ONLY then will I even consider the idea that Android may eventually one day be comparable to iOS
Really? So it doesn't matter whether your device loses all signal when you hold it wrong, or if it churns through its battery in under a day after a software update, or if it prevents you from installing any apps that compete with those published by its maker, no, none of these matter. The sole criteria on which to judge the worthiness of a mobile platform is a minor graphical bug that has no real bearing on usability.
And if anybody claims that actually, they haven't seen that particular bug on their device, they're an ignorant fanboy whose opinion can be discounted.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face