Amazon

Uh-oh, looks like Amazon is serious about getting on board the Android cluetrain. In fact, they most likely want a piece of the action in the Android space themselves. A tipster told AndroidMe that the online retail giant is planning an “entire family” of Android gadgets for this holiday shopping season.

This tip came from an industry insider with direct knowledge of the project. The information was shared with me in a recent face-to-face meeting and I believe the source to be trustworthy. It was also confirmed by a separate source who has provided reliable information in the past. As with most of my tipsters, they wish to remain anonymous.

Author Taylor Wimberly goes on to lay out the many reasons explaining Amazon’s motivation to compete in this crowded space. He’s got the point and here are just a few…

Update: BGR says:

we have been told that the “entry” level tablet, codenamed “Coyote” will be based on the NVIDIA Tegra 2 platform. The big boy? That’s codenamed “Hollywood” and will be based on the NVIDIA T30 “Kal-El” which will bring a screaming quad-core processor with a 500% performance increase over the dual-core Tegra 2.

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Mr. Bezos needs to work on his deniability skills.  On the subject of Android tablets, Consumer Reports got this from the Amazon CEO:

Asked today about the possibility of Amazon launching a multipurpose tablet device, the company’s president and CEO Jeff Bezos said to “stay tuned” on the company’s plans. In an interview at Consumer Reports’ offices, Bezos also signaled that any such device, should it come, is more likely to supplement than to supplant the Kindle, which he calls Amazon’s “purpose-built e-reading device.”

Bezos acknowledged the popularity of reading e-books (many of them sold by Amazon) on tablet computers such as the iPad. But he added that this popularity doesn’t spell the demise of the Kindle.

“We will always be very mindful that we will want a dedicated reading device,” he said. “In terms of any other product introductions, I shouldn’t answer.”

Amazon of course already has an ecosystem of eBooks, Music, Video and of course its own Android App Store, so the hardware really is the last piece at this point.  Both Analysts and yours truly think it really is only a matter of when.