In an interview with Fortune, Best Buy’s Shawn Score, the president of the retailer’s wireless retail unit, confirmed that the national retailer will be carrying a cornucopia of tablets this coming holiday season. In much the same way netbooks took the computing world by storm a few years ago, tablets are expected to supersede netbooks and be the hot selling mobile device in the foreseeable future.
Best Buy does not want to miss out on this potential tidal wave and is preparing for the onslaught of tablets slated to hit the market. While the retailer is not striving to carry every single model on the market, Score notes that Best Buy is hoping to carry a great assortment of models from a variety of platforms including Android, Chrome, Windows 7, webOS, Linux and even the Blackberry tablet, if it launches in time.
Currently, the Apple iPad is the only tablet model carried by Best Buy in select retail locations that have an Apple presence. Score did not name names but we can surmise that Best Buy will carry many of the highly anticipated upcoming models which include the Blackberry tablet, the Motorola FiOS Android tablet, and Best Buy’s own Rocketfish branded tablet which was shown off recently on twitter.
Best Buy also recently launched a new mobile broadband service known as Best Buy Connect. Under the Connect brand, the retailer resells a variety of mobile broadband plans from Verizon Wireless, Sprint, AT&T, Virgin Mobile and Cricket. Best Buy also offers the iPad and a handful of handheld PCs from Viliv and Archos to accompany this service.
These upcoming tablets, most of which will include some form of 3G connectivity, will presumably help drive sales of these lucrative data plans. With a cut from the sale of the device and a cut from its mobile broadband service, you can understand why Best Buy is excited for this tablet revolution.
[Via Fortune]