Amazon may ship tablets by September, move 4m in 2011
updated 10:15 pm EDT, Tue June 21, 2011
Amazon tablets due in late summer
Amazon's two Android tablets have had their launch windows narrowed down to the end of summer. Part suppliers maintained Tuesday night that the previous "second half" target now expected it to ship as early as August or September. The production ramp would be timed to make sure Amazon hit its sales stride by Thanksgiving, Digitimes had heard.
The Kindle maker also had very ambitious goals for shipments. Even as it would be Amazon's first venture into tablets, it was aiming to ship four million units in 2011, with a typical production of about 700,000 to 800,000 units every month. Contrary to rumors of NVIDIA Tegra chips, TI's OMAP family would handle the processors. Frequent Apple partner Wintek would make the touch panels and would be supported by ILI Technology's LCD driver chips and Quanta for the overall manufacturing.
Little was gleaned about software, but Amazon's Instant Video service would be a cornerstone. It's presumed the Amazon Appstore and Cloud Player would play important parts.
The tablets, codenamed Coyote and Hollywood, may have been co-designed by Samsung and are considered Amazon's first acknowledgments that the iPad is posing a threat to its business. Publicly, the online store has kept the Kindle out of the iPad's way and focused it on reading, but it's known to be concerned that Apple would corner Amazon on video and music.
TAGS :
Amazon, industry, gadgets, Android, Quanta, Kindle, Wintek, Apple, TI, OMAP, iPad, Coyote, Hollywood, ILI Technology
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Joined: Jan 2010
Only Amazon has a shot at being #2
Amazon has shipped hardware (Kindle), they have built worldwide brand equity, they have shipped enormous amounts of physical and digital goods to consumers, and most importantly, they have hundreds of millions of customer accounts with credit card numbers.
Amazon tablets won't kill iPad. But they will kill off the less well-conceived and less well-connected Android pads out there. And there are plenty of those.