I subscribe to Hacker News. About a week ago they had a link to a story in Venture Beat by a guy who was finding sub-$100 tablets in China. It had a link to a story saying that when the world has a lot of cheap tablets, then tablets will really change things. Just like cel phones, and laptops, etc, etc.
Apple would never let IOS on a device that cheap. So all these devices that will come on the market soon will be running Android. So I think that in a few years Android is going to be huuuuuuuge. Sure, the Chinese government could come up with a competing tablet OS. But would anybody use it? I doubt it.
Image from World Digital Library, assumed allowed under Fair Use. Image from the Psalter of Frederick II, a 13th century manuscript in the Byzantine style, housed at Riccardiana Library of Florence, aka Biblioteca Riccardiana.