亞馬遜引領(lǐng)低價(jià)平板電腦潮
|
????今天亞馬遜Woot!網(wǎng)的主打產(chǎn)品是屏幕制造商優(yōu)派公司（Viewsonic）生產(chǎn)的一款10英寸Android平板電腦，定價(jià)285美元。對(duì)于一款知名品牌的10英寸平板電腦來說，285美元是個(gè)便宜得驚人的價(jià)格，這也標(biāo)志著某種趨勢(shì)即將到來。 ????如果你覺得電腦廠商很難生產(chǎn)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(lián)想（Lenovo）等廠家生產(chǎn)的定價(jià)200美元的筆記本電腦。這種所謂的“上網(wǎng)本”基于更加昂貴的英特爾處理器架構(gòu)，而且還有合葉等零件，以及其它更大的上部構(gòu)造和好幾個(gè)端口，此外它們還需繳納25美元的微軟Windows系統(tǒng)的許可費(fèi)。它們還有1G內(nèi)存、一個(gè)鍵盤、一個(gè)觸摸屏、一個(gè)160GB的硬盤或一個(gè)32GB的閃存。盡管用料和做工如此復(fù)雜，但它們的賣價(jià)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(yōu)派平板電腦為例。它只是一個(gè)10寸的顯示屏加觸摸屏，連接到一個(gè)成本更低的ARM處理器架構(gòu)上，此外還有一些傳感器（如GPS、感應(yīng)器、攝像頭等），和比上網(wǎng)本小一號(hào)的電池。平板電腦除了使用了專用的觸屏（一般造價(jià)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(wǎng)本也都有，而且平板電腦所使用的零部件往往造價(jià)更低。 那么，為什么現(xiàn)在大多數(shù)平板電腦的價(jià)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(chǎng)的一片空白之地。不過就連在iPad發(fā)布之后，還幾乎沒有什么人相信iPad在問世的第一年里就會(huì)賣出上千萬(wàn)臺(tái)。 ????就連谷歌的高管也對(duì)平板電腦是“電腦”的理念嗤之以鼻。 ????然而，蘋果在9個(gè)月的時(shí)間里售出了1500萬(wàn)臺(tái)iPad，整個(gè)電子行業(yè)都一下子幡然醒悟了。一般說來，一款電子產(chǎn)品從研發(fā)到上市需要兩年的時(shí)間，隨著廠商紛紛出臺(tái)自己的平板電腦計(jì)劃，供應(yīng)鏈也要被迫做出大的調(diào)整。現(xiàn)在平板電腦的觸屏已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)了供應(yīng)短缺，而且據(jù)傳言蘋果公司已經(jīng)提前預(yù)定了價(jià)值40億美元的觸屏，從而使供應(yīng)更加緊張。 ????像優(yōu)派和愛可視（Archos）這樣的二級(jí)企業(yè)雖然規(guī)模較小，但靈活性更強(qiáng)，這兩家公司生產(chǎn)ARM平板電腦已經(jīng)有好幾年的時(shí)間了，因此他們的步伐比其他廠商走得更快。而韓國(guó)三星幾乎生產(chǎn)平板電腦的每一個(gè)零件（蘋果iPad的許多零部件也是由三星直接生產(chǎn)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(shí)，平板電腦的市場(chǎng)價(jià)格將出現(xiàn)驟降。 亞馬遜的優(yōu)勢(shì)在哪？ ????谷歌的Android系統(tǒng)是個(gè)開源操作系統(tǒng)。等到Android系統(tǒng)逐步完善，廠商就可以下載代碼，為他們的硬件設(shè)備構(gòu)建軟件驅(qū)動(dòng)程序，然后通過移動(dòng)運(yùn)營(yíng)商將他們的平板電腦賣給商店，或直接賣給消費(fèi)者。 ????不過這里也有所分別。并非所有這些廠商都是開放手機(jī)聯(lián)盟（OHA）的成員，而非OHA成員無法利用谷歌的Anroid市場(chǎng)和谷歌15萬(wàn)多個(gè)應(yīng)用程序來銷售自己的平板電腦產(chǎn)品（Android市場(chǎng)是谷歌為Android系統(tǒng)打造的一個(gè)網(wǎng)上應(yīng)用商店——譯注）。例如如果你購(gòu)買了一款愛可視公司生產(chǎn)的10英寸平板電腦，你就無法聯(lián)入Android市場(chǎng)。這就意味著你只能使用該平板電腦的自帶應(yīng)用。當(dāng)然你也可以從其它設(shè)備上拷貝應(yīng)用，不過對(duì)大多數(shù)用戶來說，這個(gè)太復(fù)雜了，而且只有少量應(yīng)用是可以合法拷貝的。這就是谷歌能夠控制Android平臺(tái)的關(guān)鍵所在。 ????下面為大家做一下簡(jiǎn)單的科普： ????以下關(guān)于“Android市場(chǎng)”的事是一般人不知道的： ????Android市場(chǎng)只面向開放手機(jī)聯(lián)盟的成員開放。要想聯(lián)入Android市場(chǎng)，廠商就必須加入OHA。 ????其次，一款設(shè)備要想聯(lián)入Android市場(chǎng)，必須先經(jīng)過一系列嚴(yán)格的硬件和軟件兼容性測(cè)試。如果一款設(shè)備不能聯(lián)入Android市場(chǎng)，這就意味著Android市場(chǎng)的應(yīng)用很可能根本無法在該設(shè)備上運(yùn)行。 ????谷歌之所以維持了這樣一個(gè)Android生態(tài)系統(tǒng)，讓各廠家都參與進(jìn)來，并且努力防止它真正走向分崩離析，其原因就是這些嚴(yán)格的規(guī)程。 ????盡管許多來自中國(guó)大陸和臺(tái)灣的大型廠商，如宏達(dá)電（HTC）、宏碁、華為、中興和聯(lián)想等可能都加入了OHA，但那些往往會(huì)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(chǎn)的平板電腦可能也不符合Android市場(chǎng)的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，例如內(nèi)置GPS和電子羅盤等裝置。 ????另一個(gè)問題是，當(dāng)你安裝一款A(yù)ndroid應(yīng)用前，你是否注意了應(yīng)用的下載安裝要求？我經(jīng)常看到的一個(gè)要求就是某款應(yīng)用適用于“通話狀態(tài)”。不幸的是，平板電腦并不是手機(jī)，因此也沒有什么“通話狀態(tài)”，因此這款應(yīng)用很可能無法在平板電腦上使用。這就是為什么從技術(shù)上講，那些能夠聯(lián)入Android市場(chǎng)的平板電腦，本質(zhì)上還是一部手機(jī)。 ????不過，隨著亞馬遜應(yīng)用商店的建立，如今每個(gè)廠商——包括那些非OHA成員在內(nèi)，他們生產(chǎn)的平板電腦上都有了一個(gè)意義重大的應(yīng)用商店。他們不需要加入OHA，也不需要遞交申請(qǐng)，讓谷歌來決定他們的設(shè)備是否配得上它的Android市場(chǎng)，就可以獲取大量應(yīng)用了。 ????不過亞馬遜自己對(duì)于哪種設(shè)備值得聯(lián)入其應(yīng)用商店也有自己的一套嚴(yán)格規(guī)程，這對(duì)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(huì)不加篩選地接受任何設(shè)備，但同時(shí)，它很可能也會(huì)對(duì)不生產(chǎn)手機(jī)、只生產(chǎn)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，F(xiàn)orrester的分析師莎拉?羅特曼?埃普斯數(shù)周前說過，亞馬遜公司自己就是生產(chǎn)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(fù)引用。 ????他們的觀點(diǎn)的確很有道理：亞馬遜已經(jīng)通過電影、音樂和電視節(jié)目形成了一個(gè)媒體生態(tài)系統(tǒng)，它也擁有很多信用卡付費(fèi)用戶，并且亞馬遜已經(jīng)證明了它有能力構(gòu)建一個(gè)Android一鍵式應(yīng)用商店，而且它甚至能在許多方面超躍谷歌的應(yīng)用商店。況且亞馬遜還研發(fā)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A(yù)ndroid系統(tǒng)的Kindle平板電腦（或許可以起名叫Kindroid？），將所有這些優(yōu)勢(shì)結(jié)合在一起呢？ ????不過，目前亞馬遜應(yīng)用商店里只有4000個(gè)應(yīng)用，亞馬遜還不想在此時(shí)推出平板電腦。更重要的是，微軟（Microsoft）正在四處起訴Android設(shè)備的廠商，無論是誰(shuí)，只要貌似走了Android的路子，就要等著在專利權(quán)上吃官司（除非這家公司也想發(fā)布基于Windows系統(tǒng)的設(shè)備，微軟才會(huì)網(wǎng)開一面）。亞馬遜也許不想卷入與微軟或甲骨文的專利戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)（它已經(jīng)因?yàn)椤皯?yīng)用商店”這個(gè)商標(biāo)而陷入了與蘋果的官司）——甲骨文公司一直因?yàn)楣雀鑼?duì)Java的使用而爭(zhēng)辯不休。 ????我們不妨坐看亞馬遜是否會(huì)生產(chǎn)自己的平板電腦——我非常肯定亞馬遜一定會(huì)這樣做。 ????與此同時(shí)，事情可能出現(xiàn)更加有趣的發(fā)展。 ????盡管亞馬遜也大量銷售蘋果的iPod和Mac等產(chǎn)品，但它并不銷售iPad，而是銷售許多價(jià)格更加低廉的第三方平板電腦。如果亞馬遜將它的應(yīng)用商店預(yù)先安裝到這些設(shè)備上，那么這些使用亞馬遜服務(wù)的低價(jià)平板電腦設(shè)備將形成一個(gè)不容小覷的生態(tài)系統(tǒng)。而且亞馬遜既不需要應(yīng)對(duì)專利權(quán)的問題，也不需要構(gòu)建自己的硬件，就可以做到這一點(diǎn)。而平板電腦廠商也會(huì)欣然接受這一安排，因?yàn)檫@樣一來，他們的平板電腦也能提供像應(yīng)用商店一樣全面的購(gòu)買體驗(yàn)了。 ????盡管要將亞馬遜應(yīng)用商店移植到一臺(tái)典型的Android設(shè)備上有些困難，不過把應(yīng)用商店預(yù)先安裝到一臺(tái)設(shè)備里卻是非常簡(jiǎn)單的事。比如你只要打開你的愛可視平板電腦，它就會(huì)自動(dòng)彈出一個(gè)窗口，讓你輸入亞馬遜的賬號(hào)和密碼。然后你就可以在這臺(tái)設(shè)備上享受流媒體電影、電視、音樂商店、應(yīng)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(chǎn)自己的平板電腦設(shè)備，以達(dá)到操作的無縫化，就像它的Kindle閱讀器一樣。不過在這個(gè)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(yōu)派這樣已經(jīng)建立了自有品牌，但無法聯(lián)入Android市場(chǎng)的二級(jí)公司，很可能會(huì)成為發(fā)布第一款內(nèi)置亞馬遜應(yīng)用商店的平板電腦的廠商。 ????亞馬遜也很有可能使價(jià)格僅為285美元的低價(jià)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. |
相關(guān)稿件
? 谷歌10宗罪
最新文章