14 DAY TRIAL // Slate suppliers are risking a repeat of what happened on the memory market, even if to a lesser extent, though this won't come as unwelcome to prospective customers.
A certain report says that there is a high chance for the holiday season to leave behind high inventory levels of tablets.
One would think the Christmas shopping sprees would be enough to exhaust the supply vendors already amassed.
Unfortunately for many of them, the appearance of the cheap Kindle Fire (which will even get an 8.9-inch version next year) and the B&N Nook Tablet threw a wrench in those plans.
Both are expected to sell very well, well enough that they will steal the customers of others of their ilk.
Analyst estimates place the current level of tablet inventories at 3 or 4 million, which is quite a bit.
Some time ago, it was revealed that there are about six million tablets running Android out there, which makes this remaining, unsold slate supply seem great indeed.
After all, it took over a year for those six million models to sell and, even with the convenience of the latest Android OS and slate hardware, it is quite unlikely that 3-4 million more will be sold the less than a month and a half that is left of 2011.
There is another issue that one should keep in mind: the approach of the Windows 8 operating system from Microsoft.
PC makers hope the software will give their inventions a higher marketing appeal, but that raises the issue of prospective buyers possibly holding off on buying a model until those reach stores.
In other words, Windows 8 is an extra reason for users to avoid buying tablets that already exist, hence the oversupply concerns.
All in all, to get rid of all the tablets that do already lie in warehouses, companies will be forced to cut prices, perhaps repeatedly, and in a short enough time for it to make a difference before the new wave of better versions comes in.