Archos: Strategy, Android tablet, Archos Phone

The French company Archos is certainly not resting, with this company specialising in digital players having recently widened their scope to include netbooks. Having presented at the beginning of summer the Archos Vision range of digital players for less then $140 (Archos Clipper, Archos 2, Archos 3) they have now announced the release of a range of connected products: Archos 9 (tablet and digital card), Archos 10s which is 22 mm thick and the Archos 13 with its long battery life.

Archos PMP and netbooks announced in June

During this conference, Henri Crohas, the president of Archos, went over the main points of this strategy based around three key points: entertainment, connectivity and mobility, with the different combinations giving birth to three product categories: portable media players (PMP), Internet tablets and netbooks.

The Archos Vision range has been progressively launched over the summer, with the company having sold 300 000 devices of different models in just a few months. The Archos 9 tablet PC, which we previously looked at, has a planned release date of October 22 for around $715.

Archos 9 and its Bluetooth keyboard

While it comes with a virtual keyboard, Archos has also decided to make an accessory available to turn this into a real netbook through a Bluetooth keyboard that is super flat and chargeable via the USB port. Everything can be stored in a small pouch, with its small size not being cumbersome at all.

As Henri Crohas already indicated in June, the increased presence of Archos into new product line sis linked to a mental change: up to 2008, the company developed everything internally, from hardware to software. Since 2009, they have been using Chinese manufacturers which allow them to concentrate on their products design, with the other steps being outsourced.

Archos and Android, a new love story

While this strategy has now been put into place for PMP’s and netbooks, the production of the Internet tablets is still fully under the control of Archos. While the company has for a long time developed their products on the Linux system, the possibilities of Google Android have now attracted their attention for their latest Internet tablet.

It will therefore come with the standard interface and applications of Android, creating a workspace that will be able to welcome third party Android applications. This strategy is based on the hope that Google will be able to make their mobile platform popular, with their developers being able to provide additional content at the same time.

 
The explosion of sales of the iPod Touch thanks to its ecosystem; Archos 5 running Android

This is also a way of trying to compete with Apple, the obsession of Henri Crohas, who presented their products as the reference model during the length of his speech. The Archos president has seen the success of the iPod Touch and iPhone, which then lead into great success for their catalogue of mobile applications.

Archos’s idea is to therefore run on the Android environment with all of their knowledge in the multimedia field being exploited (audio, photo, video) while taking advantage of a hardware platform that offers good performance and fluidity.