More than 15 suppliers will be selling Android-based tablets by the middle of 2011, including Acer, Cisco, Dell, Motorola, OpenPeak, Samsung, and Viewsonic, says IMS Research. As a result, the research company says, Google’s Android operating system (OS) will increase its share of the market from a projected 15.2% in 2011 to 28.4% in 2015.

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“The availability of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablet via mobile carriers such as AT&T in the U.S. will quickly boost Google Android’s presence in the tablet market,” says Anna Hunt, principal analyst at IMS Research and author of “Impact of Connected Tablets on the CE Market—2010 Interim Report.”

“Even in the fixed-broadband ISP (Internet service provider) market, where the interface is typically customized to integrate the ISP’s brand and services into the UI (user interface), hardware suppliers are offering Android models to allow ISPs to benefit from the quickly growing Android ecosystem,” she says.

With the growing importance of content and applications on portable consumer electronics, the OS and UI have become two of the most important considerations for tablet suppliers, according to IMS Research, and key suppliers such as Research in Motion (RIM) and Hewlett-Packard (HP) have invested heavily in OS technology to address the trend.

“RIM and HP are making a bold play by employing a proprietary OS for their upcoming tablet products,” Hunt says. “This will definitely further differentiate their models from the plethora of Android tablets, but will they have a sufficiently compelling content offering and user experience to entice consumers?”

IMS Research forecasts that in 2011, 7.8% of tablets shipping in the world will run something other than Apple OS, Android, or Windows. Most of these tablets will include RIM’s QNX-based OS and HP’s webOS platform. IMS Research expects this segment to grow to 19.3% of unit shipments in 2015.

Several suppliers, including HP and Viewsonic, are diversifying in their tablet OS strategies by offering models running different OS platforms. For example, Viewsonic is planning a 7-in. Android tablet as well as a 10.1-in. dual-boot Android/Windows 7 tablet. Considering the low number of announcements for tablets running Windows 7, IMS Research expects Windows to account for a very small percentage of tablet shipments over the next couple of years.

IMS Research