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Erik Schmidt, former CEO and now Chairman of Google, proudly announced that within 6 months, "We [Google] in the next six months plan to market a tablet of the highest quality." Translation can be found here from the Italian site Corriere.it.

On the surface it would appear that Google is going to compete with its recently acquired Motorola Mobility division, which also manufactures tablets that use Google's Android OS. In reality, the forthcoming product (along with Schmidt's initial announcement) should be viewed as nothing more than hype for Google's latest Android 4.5/5.0 tablet OS, due to hit the market in the June time frame.

Google's tablet partners have worked hard to dethrone Apple's iPad with their Android driven hardware. However, they have yet to make any sort of dent to iPad's market dominance. With Google's direct move into the tablet hardware space, OEM's must be wondering what kind of "partner" is Google? Samsung and HTC must be livid at Schmidt's latest revelation. Not only is Google indirectly competing against their hardware partners with the acquisition of Motorola Mobility, but now Google is directly racing out the door with their own tablet, setting their sites on carving up the already lean margin and market share Android space.

Was it always Google's long-term plan to become a hardware vendor, or did Google feel forced into the market, due to their tablet partners inability to compete with Apple?

The answer really doesn't matter. Google's hardware partners are getting screwed.

Samsung, HTC, Amazon and the rest of the pack had better make Plan B their Plan A sooner than later. Not only has Google played favorites as to which OEM's receive the latest OS updates, but now Schmidt and company will have two tablet hardware guns, Motorola Mobility and Google, soaking up more mindshare and retail space.

The smart play for heavy-handed Samsung would be to mobilize a software consortium with other hardware makers, building a core OS which everyone in the consortium could draw from. Otherwise OEM tablet makers will be forced to bow at the throne in Redmond, licensing Microsoft solutions.

It is becoming all to clear that Google is succumbing to something Apple has known all along — in order to build a really great product they must be both the manufacturer of hardware integrated with software.

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