Google tablet to be pushed online?

The rumours regarding the anticipated Google branded tablet are becoming more concrete, as it seems that the search giant’s slate plans will become a reality this year.

That’s not really a major surprise, given that Google already has its own range of Nexus smartphones, produced by Samsung. The tablets would complement those Android handsets, and help to push Android slates in the battle against the iPad in which they have thus far struggled to gain purchase.

Google is set to partner with Samsung and Asus (as we’d already heard) initially to produce these devices, although Motorola will obviously also be churning them out soon enough, when it has been acquired under the big G’s tech umbrella.

What’s interesting is that according to the Wall Street Journal, Google intends to sell the tablets online, via a web store – a move which it tried with the Nexus smartphone. One that didn’t end well, as the online shop was closed down before too long.

Exactly how the tablet push will be different, well, we’re assuming Google has a new spin in mind. We shall have to see. Apple still holds almost three-quarters of the market, according to Gartner figures anyway, so Android still has a lot of work to do.

The Kindle Fire may help push those figures up though, and has sold very well so far according to Amazon. It seems Google may well take the same approach as Amazon in subsidising the cost of its tablet, selling it off very cheaply in order to provide a more tempting alternative to the iPad.

Google may well seek other avenues of revenue to counterbalance any loss on the hardware production front; advertising helping to subsidise those tablets being one potential route. If Google can keep the price tag right down – and ensure it doesn’t run foul of any of the clunkiness Amazon’s budget Fire tablet has been labelled with – it could have a strong runner on its hands.

Providing the online store proves just a tad more successful than it did with the Nexus smartphones.