????今天亞馬遜Woot!網的主打產品是屏幕制造商優派公司（Viewsonic）生產的一款10英寸Android平板電腦，定價285美元。對于一款知名品牌的10英寸平板電腦來說，285美元是個便宜得驚人的價格，這也標志著某種趨勢即將到來。

????如果你覺得電腦廠商很難生產一款只賣200美元的平板電腦，那么你不妨看看惠普（HP）、宏碁（ACER）、戴爾（Dell）或聯想（Lenovo）等廠家生產的定價200美元的筆記本電腦。這種所謂的“上網本”基于更加昂貴的英特爾處理器架構，而且還有合葉等零件，以及其它更大的上部構造和好幾個端口，此外它們還需繳納25美元的微軟Windows系統的許可費。它們還有1G內存、一個鍵盤、一個觸摸屏、一個160GB的硬盤或一個32GB的閃存。盡管用料和做工如此復雜，但它們的賣價也只有200美元。

????再想想一款典型的平板電腦，以iPad、XOOM、三星（Samsung）或上面提到的優派平板電腦為例。它只是一個10寸的顯示屏加觸摸屏，連接到一個成本更低的ARM處理器架構上，此外還有一些傳感器（如GPS、感應器、攝像頭等），和比上網本小一號的電池。平板電腦除了使用了專用的觸屏（一般造價在25美元上下）和某些成本低廉的傳感器，其余平板電腦里有的東西，上網本也都有，而且平板電腦所使用的零部件往往造價更低。

那么，為什么現在大多數平板電腦的價格都在500美元以上呢？

????蘋果公司去年推出了iPad平板電腦，率先搶占了電子市場的一片空白之地。不過就連在iPad發布之后，還幾乎沒有什么人相信iPad在問世的第一年里就會賣出上千萬臺。

????就連谷歌的高管也對平板電腦是“電腦”的理念嗤之以鼻。

????然而，蘋果在9個月的時間里售出了1500萬臺iPad，整個電子行業都一下子幡然醒悟了。一般說來，一款電子產品從研發到上市需要兩年的時間，隨著廠商紛紛出臺自己的平板電腦計劃，供應鏈也要被迫做出大的調整。現在平板電腦的觸屏已經出現了供應短缺，而且據傳言蘋果公司已經提前預定了價值40億美元的觸屏，從而使供應更加緊張。

????像優派和愛可視（Archos）這樣的二級企業雖然規模較小，但靈活性更強，這兩家公司生產ARM平板電腦已經有好幾年的時間了，因此他們的步伐比其他廠商走得更快。而韓國三星幾乎生產平板電腦的每一個零件（蘋果iPad的許多零部件也是由三星直接生產的），因此它也在去年推出了一款自己的平板電腦。

????而戴爾、摩托羅拉（Motorola）和惠普等大廠商剛剛開始奮起直追。等到他們趕上來時，平板電腦的市場價格將出現驟降。

亞馬遜的優勢在哪？

????谷歌的Android系統是個開源操作系統。等到Android系統逐步完善，廠商就可以下載代碼，為他們的硬件設備構建軟件驅動程序，然后通過移動運營商將他們的平板電腦賣給商店，或直接賣給消費者。

????不過這里也有所分別。并非所有這些廠商都是開放手機聯盟（OHA）的成員，而非OHA成員無法利用谷歌的Anroid市場和谷歌15萬多個應用程序來銷售自己的平板電腦產品（Android市場是谷歌為Android系統打造的一個網上應用商店——譯注）。例如如果你購買了一款愛可視公司生產的10英寸平板電腦，你就無法聯入Android市場。這就意味著你只能使用該平板電腦的自帶應用。當然你也可以從其它設備上拷貝應用，不過對大多數用戶來說，這個太復雜了，而且只有少量應用是可以合法拷貝的。這就是谷歌能夠控制Android平臺的關鍵所在。

????下面為大家做一下簡單的科普：

????以下關于“Android市場”的事是一般人不知道的：

????Android市場只面向開放手機聯盟的成員開放。要想聯入Android市場，廠商就必須加入OHA。

????其次，一款設備要想聯入Android市場，必須先經過一系列嚴格的硬件和軟件兼容性測試。如果一款設備不能聯入Android市場，這就意味著Android市場的應用很可能根本無法在該設備上運行。

????谷歌之所以維持了這樣一個Android生態系統，讓各廠家都參與進來，并且努力防止它真正走向分崩離析，其原因就是這些嚴格的規程。

????盡管許多來自中國大陸和臺灣的大型廠商，如宏達電（HTC）、宏碁、華為、中興和聯想等可能都加入了OHA，但那些往往會推出平板電腦的小型廠商卻并不是OHA的成員。此外，這些小廠商生產的平板電腦可能也不符合Android市場的標準，例如內置GPS和電子羅盤等裝置。

????另一個問題是，當你安裝一款Android應用前，你是否注意了應用的下載安裝要求？我經?？吹降囊粋€要求就是某款應用適用于“通話狀態”。不幸的是，平板電腦并不是手機，因此也沒有什么“通話狀態”，因此這款應用很可能無法在平板電腦上使用。這就是為什么從技術上講，那些能夠聯入Android市場的平板電腦，本質上還是一部手機。

????不過，隨著亞馬遜應用商店的建立，如今每個廠商——包括那些非OHA成員在內，他們生產的平板電腦上都有了一個意義重大的應用商店。他們不需要加入OHA，也不需要遞交申請，讓谷歌來決定他們的設備是否配得上它的Android市場，就可以獲取大量應用了。

????不過亞馬遜自己對于哪種設備值得聯入其應用商店也有自己的一套嚴格規程，這對廠商來說可能是好消息，也可能是壞消息。這意味著亞馬遜并不會不加篩選地接受任何設備，但同時，它很可能也會對不生產手機、只生產平板電腦的公司打開大門，比如愛可視（而亞馬遜公司恰好也在銷售愛可視的平板電腦）。

????另外，Forrester的分析師莎拉?羅特曼?埃普斯數周前說過，亞馬遜公司自己就是生產一款自有品牌平板電腦的好人選。這番話后來又被丹?弗洛默、約翰?格魯伯和MG?西格勒等人反復引用。

????他們的觀點的確很有道理：亞馬遜已經通過電影、音樂和電視節目形成了一個媒體生態系統，它也擁有很多信用卡付費用戶，并且亞馬遜已經證明了它有能力構建一個Android一鍵式應用商店，而且它甚至能在許多方面超躍谷歌的應用商店。況且亞馬遜還研發了自己的Kindle閱讀器，并在上面銷售電子書。

????那么亞馬遜為什么就不能造出一款Android系統的Kindle平板電腦（或許可以起名叫Kindroid？），將所有這些優勢結合在一起呢？

????不過，目前亞馬遜應用商店里只有4000個應用，亞馬遜還不想在此時推出平板電腦。更重要的是，微軟（Microsoft）正在四處起訴Android設備的廠商，無論是誰，只要貌似走了Android的路子，就要等著在專利權上吃官司（除非這家公司也想發布基于Windows系統的設備，微軟才會網開一面）。亞馬遜也許不想卷入與微軟或甲骨文的專利戰爭（它已經因為“應用商店”這個商標而陷入了與蘋果的官司）——甲骨文公司一直因為谷歌對Java的使用而爭辯不休。

????我們不妨坐看亞馬遜是否會生產自己的平板電腦——我非?？隙▉嗰R遜一定會這樣做。

????與此同時，事情可能出現更加有趣的發展。

????盡管亞馬遜也大量銷售蘋果的iPod和Mac等產品，但它并不銷售iPad，而是銷售許多價格更加低廉的第三方平板電腦。如果亞馬遜將它的應用商店預先安裝到這些設備上，那么這些使用亞馬遜服務的低價平板電腦設備將形成一個不容小覷的生態系統。而且亞馬遜既不需要應對專利權的問題，也不需要構建自己的硬件，就可以做到這一點。而平板電腦廠商也會欣然接受這一安排，因為這樣一來，他們的平板電腦也能提供像應用商店一樣全面的購買體驗了。

????盡管要將亞馬遜應用商店移植到一臺典型的Android設備上有些困難，不過把應用商店預先安裝到一臺設備里卻是非常簡單的事。比如你只要打開你的愛可視平板電腦，它就會自動彈出一個窗口，讓你輸入亞馬遜的賬號和密碼。然后你就可以在這臺設備上享受流媒體電影、電視、音樂商店、應用程序以及電子書等各種功能了。

????（有些人表示，就連這種方式也太麻煩了，亞馬遜必須生產自己的平板電腦設備，以達到操作的無縫化，就像它的Kindle閱讀器一樣。不過在這個問題上，還是讓人們多諒解一下吧，就連蘋果公司也是要求用戶輸入他們的賬戶信息的。）

????像愛可視和優派這樣已經建立了自有品牌，但無法聯入Android市場的二級公司，很可能會成為發布第一款內置亞馬遜應用商店的平板電腦的廠商。

????亞馬遜也很有可能使價格僅為285美元的低價平板電腦變得更加有趣。

????譯者：樸成奎

????Today's Amazon/Woot! is a $285 10-inch Android tablet by display-maker Viewsonic. While $285 for a 10-inch tablet from a name brand seems surprisingly inexpensive, it is a sign of things to come.

????If you think it is hard to build a $200 tablet, take a look at a $200 netbook made by HP (HPQ), ACER, Dell (DELL) or Lenovo. Netbooks run on a more expensive Intel (INTC) architecture, they have hinges and bigger superstructures. They have a litany of ports and they have a $25 Microsoft Windows license. They have a Gig of RAM, a keyboard and touchpad and a 160GB hard drive or 32GB of Flash storage. And somehow they sell for as low as $200

????Then consider a typical tablet, be it an iPad, XOOM, Samsung or the Viewsonic above. It is a 10-inch screen attached to a cheaper ARM processor architecture, smaller battery, a few sensors (like GPS, accelerometers, camera) and a touch screen. Besides the touch screens (which typically cost about $25 or so) and some of the cheap sensors, everything that is in a tablet is in a netbook, at much less of the expense.

So, why do most tablets currently cost $500 and up?

????Apple (AAPL) caught the electronics world sleeping last year when they introduced the iPad. Even after its introduction, few thought it would sell more than a few million units in its first year.

????Indeed, even Google (GOOG) executives scoffed at the idea of a tablet as a general computing device.

????Apple sold 15 million in 9 months and suddenly the electronics industry woke up. But, with typical time to market of electronics devices at two years, tablets have required a major rejiggering of the supply chain. Touch screens are in short supply and rumor has it that Apple has further constrained supply by pre-ordering $4 billion of them ahead of time.

????Smaller, more agile second-tier companies like Viewsonic (above) and Archos, who've been building ARM tablets for years, were able to ramp up quicker. Samsung, a company that builds just about every part of a tablet, (and directly builds lots of parts that make up Apple's iPad) was also able to get a tablet out the door last year.

????The big guys like Dell, Motorola and HP are just getting up to scale. When they do, prices will plummet.

Where does Amazon fit in?

????Google's Android is an open source operating system. When Google completes Honeycomb, manufacturers can download the code, build software drivers for their hardware and sell it through mobile carriers, to stores or directly to consumers.

????However, there is a divide. Only some, not all, of these manufacturers and carriers are members of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) and can sell these devices with the Google Android Market and its 150,000-plus apps. If you buy an Archos 10 inch tablet, for instance, you don't get the Android Market. That means you get the apps that came with the device and that's about it. You can sideload apps but that's a bit geeky for most users and only a few apps are legally available to sideload. This is where Google has been able to keep control of the platform.

????Here's a quick Primer on that:

????Here is the thing people don't know about the Android Market.

????Android Market is for OHA as in Open Handset Alliance members only. The maker has to join the OHA to get the Market.

????Second, the device must pass through a strict hardware and software compatibility suite of tests. If a device doesn't get the Android Market, there is a good chance Android Market apps will fail on it.

????These rigorous procedures is the reason it holds the Android ecosystem together and prevents it from truly fragmenting.

????While the big Chinese and Taiwan companies like HTC, Acer, Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo might be OHA members, all the smaller companies, which often make the tablets, are not. Plus the tablets may not conform to the Android Market requirements, such as having a built in GPS and gyroscopic compass on the device.

????Another issue is that when before you install an Android application, do you notice it has all these requirements you need to see before you download? A requirement that I see often is the apps looks for a "phone state". Unfortunately a tablet is not a phone and therefore has no "phone state". Thus the app may likely fail on the tablet. That is the reason why Android tablets that do have the Market are in fact, technically, phones.

????However, with Amazon's (AMZN) Appstore (and if you think Google is happy about its existence, look for Amazon's Appstore in the Android Market) every manufacturer, including those who aren't members of the OHA, can now have a significant app store on their machines without having to join OHA and without submitting an application and having Google decide if the device is worthy.

????The good/bad news for manufacturers is that Amazon has its own strict procedures on what is worthy and what isn't as well. This means that Amazon isn't going to accept just any device, but it will likely open the door to companies that don't make phones, like Archos (which Amazon happens to sell).

????Also, as Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said a few weeks ago and has been subsequently repeated by Dan Frommer, John Gruber and MG Siegler, Amazon is a pretty good candidate to build their own device.

????The argument (and it is a good one): Amazon already has a media ecosystem with movies, music and TV shows. It also has a lot of credit card numbers and has demonstrated its ability to build an Android One-Click App Store which is in a lot of ways better than Google's own. Oh, and it sells a few eBooks on this device called a Kindle.

????Why not make an Android Kindle (Kindroid?) that ties it all together?

????But Amazon doesn't want to launch a device with only 4,000 apps (current Amazon Appstore count). More importantly, Microsoft has been suing anyone who even looks in Android's direction for silly patents (unless the company also plans to release Windows Phone devices). Amazon probably doesn't want to get into a patent war with Microsoft (it already is in an "App Store" trademark suit with Apple) or Oracle (ORCL), which disputes Google's use of Java.

????We'll see if Amazon builds its own device -- I'm pretty sure it is going to happen.

????In the meantime, something more interesting could evolve.

????Amazon, which also doesn't sell Apple's iPad, though they sell iPods and Macs by the boatload, sells a lot of cheaper third-party tablets. By pre-installing their Appstore to these devices, they could create a pretty impressive ecosystem of low-priced tablet devices that also use Amazon's services. And they could do this without having to deal with patents or building their own hardware. Tablet manufacturers would jump at the chance to offer a full, App Store-like buying experience on their devices.

????Although it is a bit difficult to get the Amazon Appstore on a typical Android device, a device with it pre-installed would be super simple. You turn on your Archos device and are greeted with a request to enter your Amazon login and password. You then have streaming movies, TV, a music store, Apps, eBooks and just about anything else that can be delivered to a tablet.

????(Some have said even that is too hard and Amazon would have to create their own device for it to be seamless, like Kindle. But give people a little credit here, even Apple requires users to enter their account info.)

????Look for second tier companies like Archos and Viewsonic that have established brands but are not able to get access to the market to be the first to release tablets with Amazon's Appstore built-in.

????And also look for Amazon to make that $285 tablet above more interesting.