Best Buy is known for stocking thousands of electronic gadgets. To date, that assortment has included just one tablet computer–Apple’s iPad–but that will change in coming months, Forbes has learned.
“Going into the holidays, we will make tablets a focus,” said Shawn Score, the president of Best Buy’s wireless retail unit, Best Buy Mobile, in an interview. “Like e-readers over the last couple years, we think customers will think of Best Buy for tablets and expect us to have the right ones.”
The support of Best Buy–the largest U.S. retailer of consumer electronics by sales–could transform the burgeoning tablet market. A number of electronics vendors have exhibited tablets over the past year, but only a handful of major brands, including Apple and Dell, have brought devices to market.
A new crop of tablets, including devices from Samsung, Acer and Research In Motion, is expected to debut in time for the holidays. Another wave may follow in January. Industry insiders say some tablets have been delayed and revamped due to the iPad’s popularity, but will be introduced in early 2011.
Score declined to specify which tablets Best Buy will carry, but said there will be multiple models. “We will have a great assortment of them,” he said. “It won’t be 32, but it also won’t be one, like we have today.”
Best Buy plans to offer various tablet models in part to give consumers flexibility regarding software, much the way it does with its broad selection of cellphones. Future tablets will run on different operating systems, including Google’s Android and Chrome, Microsoft’s Windows 7, Palm’s webOS and open-source Linux.
“Customers need to have choice on operating systems,” said Score. “If I’m an Android phone user and an Android tablet comes out, I might choose it. If I’m a BlackBerry user and a BlackBerry tablet launches, I might want that.”
One of the tablets may be from Best Buy’s house brand, Rocketfish. In recent weeks, Best Buy Chief Technology Officer Robert Stephens has sent out several hints via Twitter, including photos of a touch-screen tablet with a Rocketfish logo, that point to the existence of such a device.
Best Buy aims to sell tablets in both its regular stores and its Best Buy Mobile shops, which specialize in cellphones and other wireless-connected gadgets and are mostly located inside shopping malls. Score says there are currently 108 Best Buy Mobile stores across the U.S.
by Elizabeth Woyke
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