There seems to be much discussion concerning Google and its apparent failure in the tablet market.  If I understand, the suggestion is that Google has failed to execute correctly; it simply hasn’t put enough effort into pushing the idea of an Android tablet so much as it has pushed the idea of Android mobile devices. The Nexus 7 is widely regarded as Google’s first (and only) success in the tablet space, despite being preceded by a number of retail devices and one major OS revision.

And it would seem that time isn’t on Google’s side either, what with the impending release of Microsoft’s Windows 8 RT tablets.  Microsoft has been courting the tablet space for a number of years now, and their inability to make deep inroads was as much due to Windows itself as it was to a lackluster consumer demand.

But with Apple proving that tablets are now in demand, and Microsoft having an established user base on the desktop that seems primed to jump into mobile, is Google destined to be a distant third in the tablet space?  Have they gotten it wrong while Apple has run with the crown and Microsoft has finally gotten it right

I think there’s more at play here.  I’ve talked about it here, and others have talked about it too – that is, the question of whether people really need a tablet.  Tablets have – and still do – sit somewhere between the uber-personal smartphone and the uber-productive laptop/desktop.  They’re an interesting media consumption device, and Apple successfully capitalized on its existing media ecosystem by introducing another client that was less personal, less presumptuous and more convenient than the existing alternatives.

And yet we’re seeing a shift in the tablet space.  Like it or not, tablets are approaching the smartphone in size and – crucially – in importance.  They’re becoming more personal.  The shift from 10″ to 7″ has obvious implications re: productivity, and the combination of lower price and smaller screen suddenly makes the device more personal again – probably because it’s more mobile.  Microsoft will likely find success with Windows 8 RT, but it won’t be iPad-level success.  Rather, they’ll have nothing more than a viable slate alternative to a Windows desktop/laptop at best, and a larger version of a Windows Phone 8 smartphone at worst – complete with the market traction that they’ve enjoyed for the past year with Windows Phone 7.

Personally, I think that the relative success of the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7 are harbingers of the future of consumer tablets.  Curated experiences.  Portals to the ecosystem.  Unquestionable media-consumption devices that can run mobile apps on a larger, more comfortable screen than a smartphone.  And presently, the only real contenders in this space seem to be – yes, Kindle Fire and Nexus 7.  But there’s more to the story.  Google is probably better positioned than any other company at present to lead the next tablet wave.  Why?  Simply, Amazon has no interest in tablets for tablet’s sake.  Google, with the unvieiling of the Play brand, has a competitor to Amazon and they have an app store to compete with Apple.  And… they have a slew of online resources that cater to social and productivity – the latter of which has been Microsoft’s strong suit.

They’re the only company that has a 7″ tablet, a mature media store, a mature app store, and mature cloud-based social and productivity offerings.  If they were to use the 7″ tablet as a curated experience, they could immediately offer the end-user a solution to every usage case there is for a mobile device that’s not a smartphone and doesn’t have a hardware keyboard.

Stop treating Drive/Docs, Gmail, Google+ etc. as mere apps.  They need to be integrated.  Google needs to own the experience.  Sure, a user can still run the Kindle app, but there would be an obvious and clear distinction between an “app” and the ecosystem.  Stop treating the tablet as an app launcher and start treating it as an extension of your brand.

This is something that Google could do without alienating the notion of “openness”.  Again, they’re well-positioned – they have the hardware “Nexus” brand.  Rather than have a Nexus phone and a larger Nexus phone as they do now (ie, the Google Nexus and the Nexus 7), have a Nexus phone with stock Android and a Nexus tablet with “Google Experience” – the curated experience.  And if they want to continue to pursue the 10″ space (which they should), then get serious about tablet apps.  Distinguish them in the Play store, and work with developers to take advantage of the recent app guidelines.

Google still has time to figure this out.  Word is that an iPad Mini will be released soon, but unless Apple changes the staid iOS experience then we’re really only talking about the same old iPad in a smaller form factor.  It will challenge the Kindle Fire and existing Nexus 7 simply because it’s an Apple product.  If Google were to redefine (or evolve) the 7″ tablet space then they could compete with an iPad Mini on the same basis – it would become a bonafied Google product, not just an Android tablet.