If you believe the tech press, last week's IFA show in Berlin was the launching pad for a host of iPad killers -- and we all know there's nothing the tech press loves more than an iSomething killer. But at least one person whose actual business is based on these tablets don't see any of them replicating the iPad's runaway success just yet.
Ray Chen, president of Compal, will be building tablet offerings for Acer, Dell, and Lenovo, but as just another cog in the supply chain, he doesn't appear to feel obliged to engage in any cheerleading; he sees combined non-Apple iPad sales in the 10 to 12 million range in 2011. (That may sound like a lot, but remember that Apple is ramping up iPad production to 3 million units a month.) He also predicts that many players will quit the market after discovering that it isn't the pot of gold that they imagine.
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But shouldn't Android-based tablets be following Android phones' meteoric rise? Well, that depends on what you think the reason for that rise is. Yes, Android's mobile Web browsing numbers have been rising at iOS's expense (no doubt you've seen this graph a lot over the past few days). But much of that ascent has come simply because the iPhone's near-total dominance, established over the past few years, couldn't last in the face of even halfway decent competition, and because Android is available on the United States' most popular wireless network.
