Is Samsung building an Android tablet for Amazon?

AMAZON TABLET -- by SAMSUNG?? - gdgt.com staff
Peter Rojas, a staffer at gdgt.com, writes about the "open secret" that Amazon is working on an Android tablet.

  He even says he's "99% certain they are having Samsung build one for them."
 
  The Galaxy tablet is not doing that well with reviewers or with sales, though some really like it, so I hope it's either not true or that Amazon sets higher standards for them.

  BUT it would certainly explain the sudden lawsuit Apple filed against Samsung this week for look and feel (rounded corners on a rectangle, among other things -- maybe even words on a screen).  I'd thought it was odd that Samsung seemed that much of a threat to Apple -- but Amazon & Samsung?, probably.

 Rojas adds that, unlike Barnes and Noble, Amazon would use the tablet for more:

'...as a platform for selling music (see that cloud locker they just rolled out?), video (you can bet Amazon Instant Video will be a big part of this), and apps from the Android app store they just launched (which is the biggest indication of all that they've got something in the works).  You probably wouldn't have something as open as a regular Android tablet (at least not without hacking it), but I think most users would accept the trade-off if it meant a much lower price of entry.
. . .
  ...they have shown with the Kindle that they can produce a great product and then expertly tie that product into a content platform.  I'm not sure I can stress how non-trivial an accomplishment this is, especially for a company that's mainly known as a retailer. There are full-fledged consumer electronics companies that still haven't figured this stuff out. '

He thinks a tablet might be out no later than this summer although that seems off the top of his head.  A commenter to the gdgt.com site writes (and I agree) that while the stars are aligning, as he puts it, for something like this,  he hopes Amazon waits until Google "cleans up Honeycomb" - their Android operating system that was designed FOR tablet devices but has been very buggy.

In that Comments area, Rojas -- in his responses --  treats Samsung's role with the tablet as a certainty.

' I can't say specifically why Amazon partnered with Samsung, because I don't really know, but my guess is that Samsung was able to make it attractive enough from a financial standpoint and Amazon probably felt like they could deliver an iPad-quality tablet.

  Should also mention that this may be something neither party ever confirms publicly. '

Well, I guess they WILL confirm it if they actually release one together :-) -- or he's saying it would carry the Amazon name and not Samsung's and would not be touted as built by Samsung (which would be odd).


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