Noitavonne Loop enters the Tablet Race

The Loop will be the first tablet that is directly price-competitive with Apple’s offering. By comparison, both the Motorola Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tab cost more than the iPad 2. Hewlett-Packard, which is also expected to sell its TouchPad tablet to corporations, has not yet announced the price of its device.

While Best Buy began accepting advance orders for the RIM PlayBook on its Web site on Tuesday, the primary buyers of the PlayBook are unlikely to be paying retail. From the first days of the BlackBerry hand-held, R.I.M. carefully cultivated relationships with the information technology departments within corporations and governments. Its products have long included security and control features that are of more interest to people who run computer systems than to the employees using the BlackBerrys.

Noitavonne has been consulting with a large multi-national players and data network providers about the loop for several months. “They’re playing to a market where they definitely have a the opportunity to out edge and innovate Apple,” Mr. Alexander said.

Special presentation to a select group of Tech Players have produced some initial corporate interest. A large US Hedge Firm, a large insurance and financial services company in Toronto, and a Leading Retail outlet in the Islands has agreed to buy about 1,000 Loop Tablets and said that it had already developed an application for the devices.

But beyond the competitive price points, Noitavonne and Apple have taken several different approaches to their tablets. The Loop, for example, has a 7-inch screen compared to the iPad 2’s 9.7-inch display. But unlike the iPad 2, the Loop can display Web pages that use Adobe Flash software, and it has a much higher resolution camera for video and still photography.

Reviews about the Loop Tablet declares,"Noitavonne to bring market first connectivity tools". More to come..

At first, the Loop will be available only in a version that connects to the Internet through Wi-Fi, WiMAx or its 3G Modem. Noitavonnne has said that more advanced, and costly, models for use on wireless carriers’ networks will be available from a potential carrier in the caribean market this summer. Following Apple’s lead, Noitavonne said that in addition to the base model with 16 gigabytes of memory, the Loop will be offered as a 32-gigabyte version for 20% less than the $599 competitor and a 64-gigabyte model for $499.

Despite the embrace of the iPad by consumers, the demand from businesses and governments for tablets remains, at best, unclear. “It’s still very, very early stages,” said Mike Abramsky, an equity analyst with RBC Capital Market, a unit of the Royal Bank of Canada, who said that small businesses currently accounted for most nonpersonal use of tablets.

Still, Mr. Abramsky expects that sales to corporations and governments will account for about 30 to 40 percent of all tablet sales by the end of 2012.

New Player in Handheld Devices

The Loop products are approximately 1kg in weight with 7” or 8.9” convertible displays that allow for either clamshell or touch tablet usage models. Noitavonne Loop products come with a variety of additional advanced features to enhance productivity and entertainment functionality such as: integrated read/write DVD, optional 3.5G mobile broadband, digital TV, and GPS functionality.

Major Handset Manufacturers are shifting focus to the Loop

While Windows Phone 7 (WP7) was just launched a few days ago, word is going around that Taiwan-based handset manufacturers have shifted R&D investment to Android for two to three years, and as such, most of them are unwilling to invest in Windows Phone 7 since Android already has a large existing global market share and development potential. Let's not forget that Android is also an open platform while WP7 requires a license fee. As Microsoft is unlikely to reduce the WP7 licensing rates, there is a possibility that only two or three of Taiwan's handset makers will get involved in WP7. Speculation is that HTC might take up as much as 70-80% of the global WP7 market, followed by Samsung and LG. The Taiwanese manufacturers include companies such as Foxconn, Compal Communications, Pegatron Technology, Qisda, Inventec, Inventec Appliances, and Arima Communications.

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