In the recent hubbub over Motorola Xoom pricing, I started to think a bit more about the current landscape of tablets on the market today—the iPad, and the competition.
Obviously, the iPad has won round 1. And it looks like round 2 is starting with Apple throwing all the punches—even though there's been no word on a second revision from the horse's mouth (yet).
But I was thinking to myself, "Why (and how?!) is Apple the only company selling a worthy $499 tablet." Apple's always been known to most people in the world as a luxury brand—and they are, in some senses—but why is Motorola introducing a tablet that retails for $799 minimum at launch, and will someday have a $599 version?
Motorola, and others in the 'actually working / almost shipping' tablet manufacturing market, probably see that the mid-range iPads are more popular than the cheap ones, and they target this price range/feature set. So, in a sense, what they're doing makes sense: target the large part of the bell curve of tablet sales, and make a great sub-$800 tablet.
However, I think they neglect to see one of Apple's greatest advantages: the upsell.
