Apple has made it look easy with the iPad.
It has sold tens of millions of the tablet computers -- singularly defining an entire category of mobile devices -- as competitors have tried and failed to gain significant traction against it.
But there will likely be a newcomer to the race this fall that could change the tablet industry forever.
Online retail giant Amazon has hinted that it plans to offer its own tablet computer running Google's Android operating system, perhaps as early as October.
Research firm Forrester said recently that it expects Amazon to sell 3 million to 5 million tablets in the fourth quarter this year if it can keep up with the demand.
The main reason: Amazon is willing to sell hardware at a loss.
Amazon's tablet could be priced at $300 or lower, significantly less than the base-level $500 iPad.
Like Apple, Amazon also is in the business of selling e-books, streaming movies and digital music. The more tablets it has in users' hands, the more e-books it can sell to them -- which is where Amazon is hoping to make even more money.
