Competing in a fat tablet market, and why Android is the culprit.

We can't all help but notice the continuing overflow of tablets coming into the market. Tablet after tablet, here and there, most of no differentiation to one another. The announcement of Sony's tablet comes as no surprise as inevitably Sony would want to join the big party, albeit a little late. The product didn't surprise me either: Honeycomb, Qriocity, 'Playstation Certified' were all expected, the dual screen clamshell was surprising, especially Sony's odd design. Instead of the traditional linear chassis, instead they have opted for a distinctively curved design, which looks astoundingly similar to those glasses cases that have the ability of closing from both directions. I hope you know what I'm talking about as I am at a loss in better ways to explain it.

Nonetheless, Sony's entrance into the tablet space is well, just another tablet. Just another Android tablet.

I wanted to discuss the overflow of products in this segment with this article, it has been discussed many times before but it simply gets all the more prominent every passing day. Almost everyday, when I hang out on tech blogs, there's bound to be a new post with a table, displaying a new tablet's specifications, display size, processor, Honeycomb no doubt. And possibly a release date. Ok, cool. Forgotten. Another new tablet: Wow, Tegra 2, 1ghz dual-core! Cool story bro. Another one? The point is that all these devices are flooding in, and most of them don't manage to take hold and are just dropping in like dead fish into the sea of sameness. Instead of being, a glorious and vibrant emerging market, the tablet segment is becoming a breeding zone for 'me too' devices. We're not seeing a great collection of products that scream innovation and freshness, but rather a pile of cheap devices made simply with the mentality of 'I can do that too'.
I can sum it up pretty well in this rather clever analogy, the tablet market isn't expanding in a good way, too many devices of no value or differentiation don't add value to magnitude, rather the tablet market is becoming much like an obese person, filled with fat and excess, with little muscle.

If I was to pick someone to blame for this shocking outcome, you'll be surprised at who I'm pointing my finger at: Android.

This is certainly not a bad thing, and given some of my previous articles you might be deceived into thinking that I'm not a fan of Android. In actual fact, speaking as a consumer, we can never really get enough options or choices and Android has provided us virtually limitless choices. Speaking from a vendor's point of view however, Android's benefits have been countered almost equally by a set of growing disadvantages. There's no doubting that the sole benefit that Android has provided to its OEM's is a very good operating system with a vast app store, to compete sufficiently with the iOS app store. Additionally, OEM's will not have to spend time and funds to build their own operating system which would inherently be inferior due to the initial lack of third party applications. Sounds great at first glance, but what is most disadvantageous, is that all potential OEM's have access to this operating system, thus creating an enormous environment of virtually identical devices made by different manufacturers.

This creates the quite grand problem of finding a way to make your product exclusive amongst almost indistinguishable competitors. It's impossible to stand out in terms of app selection. It's possible to stand out in terms of user experience, but Android can only be skinned so much until it becomes loaded and impractical. Simply, in terms of the devices software, there is no way to give it enough exclusivity to warrant a no-brainer purchase over other Android competitors nor is there enough exclusivity to warrant a significant price gap over competitors as well. Thus, competing purely with software, the only hole-proof way to win in the Android space is via competitive pricing. And because bare-bones products with rock bottom prices is not feasible to many licensees, it is evident that many vendors have decided that in order to attract consumers, they must win in the hardware space. It's very obvious: high end processors, better graphic capabilities, more RAM, and faster 3G or 4G internet access. Instead of placing an emphasis on a great user experience, it appears that the focus is now on the fact that it's fast, it's light and possibly more physical connectivity to peripherals. Maybe even an attachable keyboard.
These are all good things but at the end of the day the consumer makes a decision based on four fundamental factors: how enjoyable something is to use, how easy it is to use, how customisable the device is and how attractive the product design is. Of these four major factors, only one corresponds directly to the quality of the hardware.

It's common knowledge that in a digital and connected age, the software takes precedence over the hardware. TV's are no longer purchased primarily on the quality of the picture, phones are no longer focused on call quality, nor are tablets made or broken by the specifications of the components inside. The software is what consumers experience and feel and 'connect' with, if the software isn't up to scratch, there's no way hardware can save that. This is why the Xoom was so astoundingly underwhelming at launch, and more importantly its sales volume was vastly disappointing. The Xoom was just another Honeycomb tablet, albeit the first one, and it didn't quite strike a home run with its hardware either. Despite its Tegra 2 and powerful innards, the display quality disappointed.

It's difficult, and more or less a Catch 22 situation for Android OEM's. Either win in the hardware arena or create a cheap no-frills Android tablet. None of these options is optimal in winning back market share from Apple. Through my eyes, I see two ways out of this quagmire: either introduce an exclusive service, or go out on a limb and just create an innovative and entirely new product. Possibly even start up a sub-market within the tablet segment. Neither of these are as simple as it sounds. However if there's one company off the top of my head that has the framework to achieve both of these, it's Sony.

The Playstation brand is much like a stepping stone for everywhere that Sony decides to go, and I understand and I encourage that since it would be wasteful to not utilise such a strong brand. Unfortunately though they've decided to ruin the potential exclusivity of 'Playstation Certified' by allowing it to be used by all Android vendors. However, Qriocity is still an exclusive Sony only service presently and represents the first way out of the Android dilemma: introducing an exclusive service. Like I said it's not as simple as just implementing the service into Sony devices. Qriocity is not yet a strong enough brand in its own right, and iTunes still has the immense trust and loyalty of its consumers. Also speaking of trust and reliability, Qriocity's reputation has already been damaged by the hacker predicament from the last week involving credit card access and service shut downs. Qriocity is still in relative infancy and requires time to grow, and just as importantly more funds need to be directed into marketing.

Additionally, in regards to 'creating an innovative and entirely new product' Sony has the building blocks for this too, and it was just announced this week. I'm referring to the S2 tablet, the dual-screen sun glasses case looking contraption. In my next article I will be talking more deeply about the advantages and disadvantages of the dual-screen concept. What I can say now is that dual screen has great potential if executed correctly. I don't think I've seen any manufacturer quite nail the two screen idea yet, apart from Nintendo. And even though the Nintendo DS has been a winner in the sales department, there's certainly room for improvement.

All the same, you've probably inferred it's becoming increasingly difficult for manufacturers to compete in an ever expanding tablet market. Each time a new generic Android device pops up, no matter how poor it is, everyone takes a hit. The Android arena has more or less been split into two major segments: low end no frill tablets for the simple minded and high end power tablets for the tech savvy. Here, the high end manufacturers are putting all their eggs into the hardware basket in an attempt to fend off competing Android tablets but are mindlessly missing the bigger picture. iPad. In essence, despite their obviously smaller ecosystems, platforms like webOS, and Blackberry tablet OS are in a better position, merely because they don't have to compete against generic rivals in a price battle. They can consequently put their focus into slaying the monster (iPad), not their 'allies'. Being exclusive has these advantages.

My analysis concludes that the availability of Android is become as much of a problem as it as an advantage. Given the immense scale of the Android ecosystem, manufacturers of Android tablets therefore have to deal with two battles: the battle against competing Android vendors and the more important battle against the iPad. If the race continues this way, individual Android OEM's will never be winners unless of course they can create a winning formula in either two methods I described earlier: introduce exclusive services or create entirely new products.