Via Technologies Inc., the Taiwanese computer-processor company, expects $100 tablet devices containing its chips to reach the U.S. in the second half of 2010, offering a cheaper alternative to the iPad.
About five different models, ranging in price from $100 to $150, will be available, Richard Brown, vice president of marketing at Via, said in an interview. The new computers, made by the company�s Chinese customers, will run Google Inc.�s Android operating system.
Via-powered machines are joining the flood of competitors to the iPad, which Apple Inc. introduced last month. Apple sold a million of the devices in their first month on sale, showing that consumers may be ready to accept tablets after years of shunning them. Apple�s iPhone already competes with Android in the market for smartphones, with the Google software running devices from HTC Corp. and Motorola Inc.
�The tablet market has been legitimated by Apple,� Brown said. �Android is bringing a lot of diversity to the market. There are different sizes and different looks and feels.�
The popularity of the iPad, which starts at $499, will spur a sixfold increase in industrywide shipments of tablet computers by 2014, according to research firm IDC. Worldwide shipments will rise to 46 million from 7.6 million this year, Framingham, Massachusetts-based IDC said last week. It expects a total of 398 million portable personal computers to ship in 2014.
Apple�s iPad runs on chips made with technology from ARM Holdings Plc, a type of processor that dominates in mobile phones that power Android devices and Apple�s iPhone.
Brown said Via is offering an ARM-based semiconductor for the new tablets. The company also holds a license from Intel Corp. to make chips that work on X86 technology, the standard used in most of the world�s personal-computer processors.
�Android is a free, open-source mobile platform,� Google spokeswoman Kasia Chmielinski said in an e-mail. She declined to comment on product announcements.
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