Or that if they wanted to make inroads in the market, they were going to have to make the first one as a loss leader to make inroads on the market.
And if anyone is going to make inroads against the iPad, that's likely what they will have to do. Nobody is going to get the economy of scale that the iPad does with their first product, and nobody is going to have superior features at a similar price point, so the only way to make inroads is going to be the loss leader and making money off of a similar app store. (the playstation model)
How much loss can any company take? The more successful your loss leader, the higher the losses. If you sell 10 million tablets at $100 loss per tablet that's a billion dollar loss. And I'm not sure selling 10 million would even be enough of an inroad. And I'm not sure that selling them at $100 per tablet loss would make them cheap enough to sell at that quantity. It's a very delicate situation.
> And I'm not sure selling 10 million would even be enough of an inroad.
Elsewhere in this thread, earl claims that around 25 million iPads (both generations) have been sold. So selling 10 million tablets would be a pretty huge inroad.
And if anyone is going to make inroads against the iPad, that's likely what they will have to do. Nobody is going to get the economy of scale that the iPad does with their first product, and nobody is going to have superior features at a similar price point, so the only way to make inroads is going to be the loss leader and making money off of a similar app store. (the playstation model)