Google to Open Online Tablet PC Store

Our favourite internet behemoth – Google – is planning to open an online store to sell tablet PCs directly to consumers, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Google’s online store would offer tablets made by Samsung and Asus based on Google’s Android software, according to the WSJ report.

Google briefly sold a specially-designed Android smartphone – Nexus One – directly to consumers in 2010, but closed the store after four months saying it had not lived up to expectations.

Google now relies on retail and carrier partners to sell Android smartphones made by a variety of handset makers and Android has become the world’s No.1 smartphone operating system, ahead of iPhone-maker Apple Inc.

But Apple still dominates the market for touch-screen tablet computers with its two-year old iPad. Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire tablet is based on the open-source Android code, but the device features a customized interface that does not use many Google services.

Google may co-brand some of the tablets sold through the store and has considered subsidizing the cost of future tablets to make them more competitive with the Kindle Fire, according to the Journal report. It is unclear when Google plans to open the store.