‘Chinese iPad’ from Alibaba by year-end?

The tablet market has turned into an epitome of growth itself. Every month, rather every day, we are hearing about new tablets being launched. But, there is still not one that truly rivals the world’s first tablet – Apple’s iPad.

 Like many others before him, Chinese firm Alibaba’s Jack Ma has claimed that he is going to introduce a tablet that competes with the iPad. The twist with this one is that it would be introduced in china and operate on a Linux-based OS.

Alibaba’s CTO Wang Jiang has commented that the table will run on Aliyun – a Linux based OS and will be made by Chinese firm Tianyu. Tianyu has already released an Aliyun based tablet – the K-Touch W700 with a price tag of $416 (Rs. 28,000 approx.).

Alibaba has a strong presence in the Asian markets, India and China being its strongholds. Alibaba.com is a popular site in India. Along with that, India already outsources most of its hardware from China. Companies like G’Five use Chinese hardware for manufacturing their phones and tablets.

While a ‘Chinese iPad’ can be truly called far-fetched, one can’t deny that Alibaba has good infrastructure in place for selling a tablet. The company already offers strong online commerce, retail and payment platforms along with Cloud computing services.

The Chinese iPad currently being called the YanPad will compete in an already mustering tablet market. But truly, it seems to have its mind in the right place, as India and China are the largest markets in the world. A mark here can ensure sweet success for any tablet.

What remains to be seen is how it would compete with the reigning champion – Apple’s iPad.

Currently there is no information about the Indian release date or price of this tablet, but we are hoping for something to pop up on that front soon.