Apple Splits With Design Partner Over Tablet PC Prototype

Apple ended its relationship with a Silicon Valley engineering design company after the firm developed a prototype of its own tablet PC computer that could compete with the Apple iPad.

A New York Times story published Thursday quoted Eric Bauswell, founder and chief executive of engineering design company SurfaceInk, as confirming that his company and Apple had parted ways.

San Jose, Calif.-based SurfaceInk specializes in product design work: The company's Web site said the company got its start in 1999 "as a handful of Midwest mechanical engineers that wanted to design cool stuff." The company has worked with Apple and Apple competitors such as Hewlett-Packard and Palm, and designs its own products that it licenses out to other companies.

As part of that latter business, SurfaceInk publicized a prototype 12.1-inch tablet computer during an electronics trade show in June, according to the New York Times story. While the device was meant to demonstrate SurfaceInk's design capabilities to potential clients, the story said, Bauswell said Apple considered the prototype to be a potential competitive threat.

"I think they view our capabilities as an opportunity for competitors," Bauswell told the Times.

Late last month, during Apple's third-quarter earnings call, Apple executives said 3.27 million Apple iPads were sold between April 3 when the device debuted and the end of the quarter on June 26.

But a wave of competing tablet devices from manufacturers such as Dell and Samsung -- based on Google's Android mobile operating system -- are expected to hit the market later this year. In addition, HTC is believed to be developing a tablet based on Google's Chrome operating system, while Asus is developing a Linux-based tablet PC.

Forrester Research has predicted that sales of tablet computers will grow from 3.5 million units this year to 20.4 million units in 2015.