The January 2011 Consumer Electronics Show seems much farther away than a mere
nine months, at least for any business that debuted technology to take on Apple
s (NASDAQ: AAPL ) iPad. When Google (NASDAQ: GOOG ) took the lid off of its
Honeycomb version of the Android mobile operating system, it appeared to
consumers and investors alike that there finally was going to be a tablet market
rather than an iPad market. It didnt happen. By the end of Wednesday, though,
technology industry watchers are waiting for a renewed vigor to come to the
tablet competitive landscape when Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) unveils its new $200
Kindle Fire tablet . But Amazon isnt the only company thats bringing a new
device to the market to cripple Apple. While Research In Motion s (NASDAQ: RIMM
) PlayBook and Hewlett-Packard s (NYSE: HPQ ) TouchPad have failed to find an
audience in the past 12 months crippling share prices in both companies in the
process other tablet hopefuls are gearing up for Round 2 and, in one case,
Round 3. Motorola / Google Motorola (NYSE: MMI ) and its Xoom Android tablet
were seen as frontrunners coming out of CES at the beginning of the year. The
device looked like a technological powerhouse compared to the first-generation
iPad still flying off shelves at the time, and investor confidence in the
company grew as a result. Shares climbed from $29 to around $36 following the
Xooms debut. Of course, the devices massive price tag and poor app selection
caused it to tank on release in February, and MMI sank to a 52-week-low of below
$21 by July. Today the company is trading above $38, with investor interest
renewed by a pending Google acquisition of the company . Its no surprise that
with their combined might, Motorola and Google are coming back to the tablet
market with a vengeance. Engadget showed off pictures of two Xoom 2 prototypes
on Sunday. The new devices come in two sizes and offer 4G LTE support, meaning
that provided they hit the market in the next few months MMI and Google can
rely on AT&T (NYSE: T ) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ ) to push the tablets as the
fastest on the market. MMI has a lot to prove with this one.
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