Sharp, Lenovo to join the tablet war this year

By Michael Kan, Martyn Williams, and Dan Nystedt | Jul 21, 2010

Both Sharp and Lenovo are set to introduce their tablet devices within the year.

 

After releasing its own handset to compete with Apple's iPhone, Lenovo looks like it may be preparing to take on the iPad. The Chinese company plans on releasing its own tablet PC at the end of the year.

 

The device will be called the "LePad" and will use the Android mobile operating system, according to recent comments made by Liu Jun, senior vice president and president at Lenovo's Consumer Business Group, and confirmed by the company.

 

The product's development comes as Lenovo's chairman said earlier this month that Apple CEO Steve Job hasn't been focused on the Chinese market. "If Apple were to spend the same effort on the Chinese consumer as we do, (Lenovo) would be in trouble," Liu Chuanzhi told the Financial Times.

 

This year, Lenovo began selling its own smart phone called "LePhone." The company has said in the past Lenovo's strategy is to "win" in China before Lenovo begins selling the phone abroad. Lenovo also believes the mobile Internet hardware and services could become 10 to 20 percent of the company's business over these next five years.

 

Other Chinese companies have also developed their own tablets, with some even billing their devices as imitation iPads. But Lenovo would be one of the larger companies to take on building such a device.

 

"Lenovo has a strong brand name that resonates with local buyers. That's something that's in their favor," said Bryan Ma, associate vice president for IDC Asia-Pacific, of the company's plans.

 

IDC predicted that in 2011, shipments for media tablets will rise to 1 million for both China and Taiwan combined. In 2014, that number is expected to grow to 4 million. But how the tablet market in China will develop still remains to be seen, Ma added.

 

"There are still questions about what applications are (these tablets) going to be used for. What kind of interest will they attract," he said.

 

e-book from Sharp

Japan's Sharp also announced Tuesday its plans to enter the increasingly competitive e-book reader market later this year with a device that can read a new e-publishing file format of its own.

 

The company will launch an e-book reader in Japan before the end of the year and is also working towards a launch outside of Japan. The device, which has not yet been detailed by the company, is likely to hit the US after Japan and Sharp said it is already in launch talks with Verizon Wireless.

 

Despite the growing popularity of e-books, the market remains split between several electronic publishing file formats. Amazon.com's Kindle uses a proprietary format and isn't compatible with the ePub format used in many other devices.

 

Sharp's e-book readers will read files in a new version of XMDF (ever-eXtending Mobile Document Format), a format developed by Sharp and used in some of its previous devices.

The new version adds support for multimedia data and will allow audio and video to be embedded into e-book pages.

 

The original version of XMDF was accepted into the international standard for e-publishing (IEC62448), although its use remains largely confined to Japan.

 

Readers for the XMDF format are available for Windows PCs, Sharp electronic dictionaries, handheld PCs, cell phones and Sharp's Aquos televisions. Sharp runs an online store for XMDF-format electronic books that has over 29,000 titles from several major Japanese publishers.

 

Sharp said it has yet to decide if its reader will support other formats in addition to XMDF.

 

Amazon Kindle sales defy iPad after price cut

Despite the noise made by the ongoing phased launch of iPads in different countries, Amazon has success in driving up its Kindle sales after dropping the price to US$189.

 

"We've reached a tipping point with the new price of Kindle--the growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled since we lowered the price from $259 to $189," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, in a statement Monday.

 

The company said millions of people are already reading e-books on Kindles, but it did not name an exact number of Kindles sold.

 

Apple last month said it had already sold 3 million iPads.

 

Speculation on whether the iPad would kick Kindle off the market started after Apple announced its first 1 million iPads sold, in just 28 days. At the time, Apple also said that over 1.5 million e-books had already been downloaded from the new iBookstore. The hefty volume of downloads prompted forecasts that Amazon.com's e-book sales would take a hit.

 

Amazon on Monday said its sales of Kindle books have overtaken hardcover book sales.

 

The number of Kindle books (e-books) sold by Amazon.com has outpaced the number of hardcover books 143 to 100 over the past three months, the company said, and it has sold three times as many Kindle books in the first half of this year as compared to the first half of last year.

 

The US Kindle Store has more than 630,000 books for sale and another 1.8 million free out-of-copyright e-books.

 

The company excluded the number of free Kindle books from the other figures.

 

Kindle devices differ from iPads mainly in their screens, capabilities, battery life, price and weight. Kindles use e-reader screens which are normally monochrome or black and white, have no backlight, and are meant to mimic the experience of reading a normal book. The screens are low power, giving e-readers weeks of battery life, compared to up to 10-hours of battery power for an iPad. iPads use LCD technology in their touchscreens and have LED (light emitting diode) backlights, which require more power. Software is tweaked to make text easier on the eyes to read. The iPad is also a small computer with Internet and video capabilities, in addition to its use for e-books.

 

Finally, the $189 Kindle weighs 10.2 ounces, compared to the lowest cost iPad, $499, which weighs 24 ounces.

 

IDG News Service