Multinational e-commerce store, Amazon, is rumoured to be planning a tablet release in August that will strongly rival Apple’s iPad, but Steve Jobs’ Silicon Valley based tech giant is reportedly on the offensive already.According to DigiTimes, Amazon has been in talks with a number of Taiwanese and Chinese touch panel manufacturers including TPK Holdings, Wintek, J Touch and HannStar Display, to supply touch panel parts for a device that is to enter the market in the second half of 2011.
If launched, the device will be a mass selling device, with sources claiming orders for the first batch of touch panels will top 1.5-2 million units.
However, the same companies have also been in talks with Apple for iPad parts, which could make it difficult for Amazon to source enough parts to get its devices built on schedule, according to PC Magazine.
TPK, which invented the transparent projected-capacitive touch technology, and is one of the major suppliers of touch modules for the iconic iPad, is reluctant to commit to the supply of parts to the e-comm store, reports DigiTimes.
Meanwhile Apple has also been on the trail of large deals with component manufacturers in a bid to chase down buyers in the emerging and pre-paid markets with cheaper smartphones and iPads.
And it seems its moves are making it difficult for rivals to even contemplate entering the tablet space.
Yesterday SmartHouse reported that the tech company had already locked down production schedules with Wintek, which would make it difficult for the Chinese company to commit to new orders from Apple’s rivals.
Nonetheless Amazon is reportedly working on two devices, codenamed Coyote and Hollywood, which would enter an already crowded space with competitors like Motorola, Samsung, Acer, Toshiba, RIM, Hewlett Packard and Asus in there already.
However, Apple, having defined the market with the iPad, and now hogging parts manufacturers’ attention, is sitting pretty while its competitors find it increasingly difficult to carve out market share.
But rumours surfacing from Los Angeles say the two tablet offerings from Amazon could give Jobs’ device a run for its money, by providing a broad range of content, including including music, digital games, movies, TV shows, books and Android apps to users of the Amazon tablets at launch, posing serious competition to the Apple iTunes store.
It will also pose huge problems for competing Android tablets like the Xoom from Motorola, and Samsung’s Galaxy Tabs.
Amazon is said to be working on a 7 inch and 10 inch Android tablets, with the higher end tablet expected to have a quad-core processor and rumoured to be ‘amazing’.
The continuing frenzy for tablet market share is also impacting demand for dynamic random access memory (DRAM), according to IHS iSuppli research.
It claimed tablets will consume 333.7 million gigabits of DRAM in 2011, up from 37.3 million gigabits in 2010. The increased DRAM demand from tablets will rise to 1.1 billion gigabits in 2012 and continue to climb by leaps and bounds during the next four years, according to the research firm.
