You know a consumer electronics category is officially saturated when Acer releases a line of products with synthetically consumer-esque names such as Iconia and Alive. But enter the market Acer has…and the explosion of Android-powered Tablets has indeed begun in earnest. So is this all rosy news for content and media companies?

Well…Yes and No.

For gamblers like Rupert Murdoch (who owned the Tablet news this week with the unveiling of the The Daily Tablet subscription-based newspaper concept set to launch in early 2011), presumably the more tablets the better, right? Not so fast. Dig a bit deeper into the Acer announcement and the Android fragmentation ‘fly in the ointment’ – the mention of its own pre-loaded Android App Store (the ghoulishly named Alive App Store) – begins to rear its ugly head.

OK so let’s review. There are currently 4 active firmware versions of the Android OS available on handsets currently for sale in your local mobile phone shop (Android 1.5, 1.6, 2.1, 2.2). In most cases, 2.2 (Froyo) is only available as an upgrade (and only for a few top level handsets at that). So already we have the well documented issue of designing mobile apps compliant to all Android versions currently ‘in the wild’. Add in the new trend of handset manufacturers, Mobile Network Operators, and MVNO’s creating ‘flavours’ or co-brands of various strains of the Android OS (such as the HTC Sense, Vodafone/Orange/O2 versions, etc.) – you’re looking at a LOAD of Android variances to keep up with, test, and ensure compliance. This is not so bad when you’re dealing just with firmware versions – but the pain becomes exponential once App discovery services get involved.

Enter the new Acer Tablet App Store.

Not only do Android Tablet ‘strains’ of the OS require a re-think in terms of App development (for say magazines, newspapers, etc.) – but the inclusion of a custom App Store (alongside the existing Google Market App Store) will almost certainly cause confusion for the consumer, submission hell for the media owner, and a maintenance and update processes that will annoy almost everyone involved.

We get it, Acer – you want a piece of the Apple App Store success story. We all do. But the level of customer and supplier confusion in the further fragmentation of apps, upgrades, discovery, and maintenance helps no one.

Sadly for media and content owners retrofitting their publishing processes to prepare for digital delivery to multiple tablet OS and firmware versions – this is a problem that is not going away. Android is no doubt an exceptional OS for the tablet marketplace (second only perhaps to Apple’s iOS). But developers and content owners drawing up elegant plans and sales presentations to target ‘all tablets’ need to think long and hard about the implications of a shotgun approach.

Digital Publishing fragmentation is no longer just about Tablet OS (or even a sub-version of that OS). Perhaps Acer hit the nail on the head – customised App Store fragmentation is now officially Alive.

Some of our clients include: