<\/a><\/p>\n

Google I\/O was last week. While I didn’t attend, I did follow it closely at a Google I\/0 Extended event at Google’s San Francisco offices where I watched both keynotes and a number of the tech sessions on the big screen.<\/p>\n

The most signifigant announcement of I\/0 was the $199.99 (for the 8GB version) Nexus 7 tablet. It out-specs all the other 7 inch tablets in the market by a\u00a0significant\u00a0margin. I expect the Nexus 7 will quickly become the best selling Android tablet and possibly the best selling tablet overall. I believe that Google has three main goals for the \u00a0Nexus 7:<\/p>\n

To help Android top Apple’s tablet market share and become the dominant computing platform in the world<\/strong>. The iPad currently owns 60% of the tablet market,\u00a0in spite\u00a0of being a premium priced product. Market share leadership is a meaningless symbolic victory, but given Apple’s all out legal war against Android, I think Google would like to be able to claim that Android is the popular favorite. Plus big sales mean lots more traffic and targeting\u00a0data for Google’s cash cow, search\u00a0advertising.<\/p>\n

The Nexus 7 also targets Microsoft desktop dominance. Personal computing is moving from PCs to the post-PC world of tablets and smartphones. \u00a0The fastest growing market for smart devices is the developing world<\/strong>, where bang for the buck is the driving factor and where free and open Android has a huge cost advantage over anything from Microsoft or Apple.<\/p>\n

To gain control of the Android tablet mass market<\/strong>. \u00a0The Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet and Nook Color, the least expensive quality tablets. \u00a0account for nearly half of all Android tablet sales. They run modified versions of\u00a0Android designed to direct users toward paid\u00a0content\u00a0from Amazon or Barnes and Noble. This means less revenue and a loss of brand recognition for Google. The Nexus 7 gives users superior hardware and performance plus more choice and\u00a0flexibility\u00a0at the same price point. At the same time it promotes Google’s vision of an a relatively open computing platform that serves users, society and innovation while giving Google the data it needs to deliver more targeted, and thus more effective and profitable advertising.<\/p>\n

Provide a consistent, high volume pure Google Android experience<\/strong>. \u00a0Mobile operators and device manufactures hamstring Android by blocking upgrades, adding bloatware and\u00a0diluting\u00a0\u00a0the user experience with custom skins. It’s\u00a0significant\u00a0that the Nexus 7 is a Wi-Fi only device sold direct to consumers by Google. \u00a0Google is in complete\u00a0control\u00a0of the hardware and software, including updates. The Nexus 7 and it\u00a0successors\u00a0 gives Google a showcase for Android and all Google services, present and future.<\/p>\n

To summarize, the Nexus 7’s delivers a near state of the art post-PC computing\u00a0platform\u00a0\u00a0at very a low price point. It and its inevitable successors are intended\u00a0to sell in huge volumes\u00a0globally\u00a0and make Android the dominant personal computing platform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google I\/O was last week. While I didn’t attend, I did follow it closely at a Google I\/0 Extended event at Google’s San Francisco offices where I watched both keynotes and a number of the tech sessions on the big screen. The most signifigant announcement of I\/0 was the $199.99 (for the 8GB version) Nexus 7 tablet. It out-specs all the other 7 inch tablets in the market by a\u00a0significant\u00a0margin. I expect the Nexus 7 will quickly become the best … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[189],"tags":[1436,1403,1367,1106],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18317"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18324,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18317\/revisions\/18324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}