The attack of the Honeycomb powered tablets started with Motorola’s Xoom which started shipping a few months ago, right after the Mobile World Congress. The sales of that device haven’t been particularly impressive when we compare them to the numbers that the recently launched iPad 2 managed to garner. Since its launch, Motorola has only shipped 250,000 Xoom tablets. The iPad 2 hit 1 million in it's first weekend.

 

If we are to believe Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha, the problem currently faced by Honeycomb tablets is the lack of apps. However, Jen-Hsun Huang adds that it’s not just the apps. He opines that "It's a point of sales problem. It's an expertise at retail problem. It's a marketing problem to consumers. It is a price point problem." In short, it seems he wasn’t particularly happy with the pricing that these first Android powered tablets have had. He was also unhappy that a 3G only version of the Xoom wasn’t available for a low price point. He added that “Tablets should have a Wi-Fi configuration and be more affordable. And those are the ones that were selling more rapidly than the 3G and fully configured ones.” 

 

That said, he was also quite upbeat about the future prospects of Android. According to him, even though these first generation of Android tablets might have not gotten it right, a majority of issues should be sorted once these same tablets get a software update. He said that he was happy at the rate at which the manufacturers if these tablets were working to improve them. 

 

Do you think, Android will be able to replicate its success it has had with smartphones in the highly competitive tablets segment?

 

 

 

 

Source: CNET