Tribune Taking a Wild Turn Into Tablet Market With Free Device

The iPads dominance of the tablet market is well covered . Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL
) sold 9 million iPads over the course of the second quarter. Research in Motion
(NASDAQ: RIMM ), Samsung, Hewlett-Packard (NASDAQ: HPQ ) and Motorola (NYSE: MMI
) are just a few of the companies that have released high-profile tablets in
2011. Not one of them has managed to sell even a fraction of what the iPad has.
Whether this is a result of growing pains in what will eventually be a robust
market or just another example of Apple first defining, then owning an entire
technology market remains to be seen. The iPad very well could be the iPod all
over again. Of course, no one ever tried to release a free iPod to spur music
sales during that devices reign. Who would be crazy enough to release a free
tablet, though? The Tribune Company. The publisher behind long-running
newspapers like The Chicago Tribune , The Baltimore Sun and The Los Angeles
Times and operator of major websites including Career Builder.com and Cars.com
plans to release its very own tablet PC , according to a report at CNN. Its
difficult to tell how it will compare to Apples popular touchscreen toy, but the
price sounds right. Tribune is hoping to offer the tablet to readers for free or
at a highly subsidized price provided readers pay for extended subscriptions to
its outlets and (potentially) a wireless data plan with an unknown provider. The
devices rumored manufacturer might end up a liability for the company. Three
sources claimed that Samsung (PINK: SSNLF ) will make the Tribune tablet, the
very same Samsung who provides tablet components to Apple and whose Galaxy Tab
tablets have been the focus of numerous patent infringement lawsuits filed by
Apple. Tribune could leave itself vulnerable to Apples thirst for litigation and
monopoly on tablet components right out of the gate. Problems with its chosen
manufacturing partner aside, its impossible to say what kind of success or
failure Tribune will have with its device until its clear just what the machine
can do. Will it simply offer electronic versions of Tribunes publications? Apps
for those websites the company co-owns? A basic Web browser? Its said that the
device will run on a custom version of Google s (NASDAQ: GOOG ) Android
operating system. Will it provide access to the Android App Market? Forget that
the device has been described explicitly as a tablet. It seems more likely that,
considering that Tribune plans to give away the device for (close to) nothing,
it will not be as technologically robust as the typical tablet. In fact, the
price tag suggests that it will be closer in line with more advanced e-readers,
like Barnes & Noble s (NYSE: BKS ) Android-powered Nook Color. That would
suggest that Tribune will be competing with that device and Amazon s (NASDAQ:
AMZN ) popular Kindle device. Amazon, in fact, will most likely be Tribunes true
competitor, not Apple. Rumors persist that Amazon will release its own
iPad-level tablet carrying the Kindle brand later this year. At the same time,
there have been rumors that Amazon plans to offer its Kindle e-reader for free
along with subscriptions to its Amazon Prime service. If users can have access
to a broader selection of magazine and newspaper publishers on a comparable
device with a stronger brand, Tribune will have to add tablet disinterest to its
list of woes alongside dwindling print circulation. As of this writing, Anthony
John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here. Follow him
on Twitter at