The tablet era has arrived at big-box retailers, which are now setting aside large swaths of floor space previously devoted to traditional PCs.
Best Buy is probably the highest-profile example of this trend. At U.S. stores, it has overhauled--or is in the process of overhauling--display areas. Tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Motorola Xoom, and Hewlett-Packard TouchPad now get prominent placement at stores, rendering the iPad just one among equals.
This is all part of Best Buy's "Tablet Central" strategy. Here's how Bill Seymour, vice president of investor relations at Best Buy, explained it during the company's earnings conference call last month. "We're making a big push in tablets this year...We started rolling out Tablet Central in May. In the beginning of July, we expect it will be in all of our 'big-box' stores," he said.
In fact, this strategy is already obvious at many locations. In the Los Angles area, for instance, when a customer walks into the PC section of some stores, they are greeted by an array of individual displays featuring the Xoom, Galaxy Tab (which both run Google's Android operating system) and the TouchPad (running the WebOS). Walk further into the store and large tables hold a variety of tablets and e-readers from other vendors such as Acer, HTC, RIM, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. And more tablets are on the way, including Toshiba's Thrive.
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