More Google News: Google Happy Acer and Asus Undercutting Nexus 7; Nexus Q Dropped

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Here's some more interesting Google news for this fine Friday morning. In case you guys have missed some of our earlier reports, both Acer and Asus are coming out with Android tablets in the $149 dollar range for several different world markets. Despite the fact that this undercuts the Nexus 7, Google is supposedly quite happy they are doing this. Here's a quote with some more detail,

As Acer and Asustek Computer will soon launch 7-inch tablets for sale at about US$149, Google, although having cooperated with Asustek to develop the Nexus 7, is not worried about the competitive impact of US$149 tablets on sales and instead hopes the launches will increase the global market share of Android tablets, according to supply chain makers.

Acer will launch 7-inch tablets equipped with processors developed by MediaTek at US$99-149 in Asia and South America initially at the end of January, with target shipments of 500,000-600,000 units for the first quarter, the sources indicated.

Asustek will also launch 7-inch tablets at about US$149 in Taiwan, China, India and South America at the end of January, with target shipments of five million units for 2012, the sources said. Asustek, in order to minimize production costs, adopts processors developed by VIA Technologies and touch panels and key components supplied by second-tier makers for the tablets, the sources indicated.

If you think about it on a larger scale, it makes perfect sense that Google would be thrilled about this development for three reasons. One, a greater market influx of affordable Android tablets across the globe can only be a good thing for Android. Two, it was Google's intention to begin with to jump-start an inexpensive tablet revolution to finally help the Android OEMs compete effectively with Apple's iPad. Three, Google's primary business is search and advertising. More tablets in people's hands means more people browsing the web and clicking on ads. For them, it's nothing but win-win.

That's not all the news out of the Google camp for today though. Apparently, it looks like Google finally decided to "shelve" the Nexus Q Media device concept, at least for now. If you go to the Google Play Store, the device is now listed as "no longer for sale." For the most part we are sad to see this device go. Yes, it needed quite a few enhancements to make it a viable product, but it definitely was a cool concept. Perhaps it was simply too far ahead of its time, or perhaps its current form needs to evolve into something else before it can truly realize its potential. Some ideas need to "percolate" a bit longer.

Source: DigiTimes