Google, Microsoft to test Apple's tablet dominance

TAIPEI: Google and Microsoft's attempts to loosen Apple's grip on the booming tablet-computer market will be put to the test this week as PC makers unveil new models at the Computex trade show in Taipei. Investors and analysts will be looking to see if Google's Android operating system can match the popularity of the iPad, while Microsoft may preview its next Windows platform for tablets a year after Apple's first offering hit store shelves.

"Investors want to know which tablet is better, which has the best price-performance , and when the noniPad camp is going to get going ," said Angela Hsiang, an analyst at KGI Securities in Taipei. "Previously, people couldn't actually see the products .

At Computex, we'll be able to touch and use them." Acer and Asustek Computer, which upended the computer market when they showed low-cost netbooks at Computex in 2007 and 2008, will demonstrate new tablets featuring Google's Android this week. The operator of the world's most popular search engine and Microsoft will both send executives to the event to meet with reporters and update companies on their plans.

Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, and ARM Holdings , whose chip designs are used by Qualcomm and Nvidia to run tablets, will also try to convince manufacturers that their products are the best as the desktop and notebook markets slow. Global shipments of tablets will climb to 215 million units in 2015 from 17 million last year, Toni Sacconaghi, a New York-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, wrote in a May 26 report.

Fifteen percent of all tablets will cannibalize the sale of consumer PCs, reducing computer-sales growth by 2% annually between 2010 and 2015, Sacconaghi wrote. Competition from new entrants will cut Apple's share of the tablet market to 50% next year, iSuppli said on April 21, from almost 100% when the Cupertino, California-based company began selling the iPad in June.