Report: Retailers Betting Against Moto’s Xoom Tablet

Motorola’s Xoom is fast becoming a retailing slug. The slowness to catch-on with consumers (the Xoom sold only a fifth as many units during its first week compared to Apple) may not be totally the fault of the Android-based tablet, but partly retailers. A Friday report suggests big box tech giants and others are lumping the Xoom into the me-too iPad alternative category.

Best Buy, for instance, tells consumers they offer tablets, showing an iPad, then a Xoom under the generic “Tablet” label. At some Verizon Wireless stores, the iPad and iPad 2 are highlighted, with Samsung the obvious alternative. Meanwhile, the $599 Xoom is beside the $199 Samsung Galaxy Tab.

A sign of the disparity arrived Friday morning as reports suggested Apple may black-list Best Buy due to the retailer holding back selling every iPad in stock. Apparently, there is no equivalent concern the retailer will have customers demanding more Xooms.

In more bad news for the first product to be powered by Google’s tablet-centric ‘Honeycomb’ Android 3.0 OS, RIM’s PlayBook is due out later in April.

[CNET]

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