We have been here before. Back in March, rumors started to circulate about a proposed Google Nexus tablet. All the ingredients for a media frenzy were there: anonymous sources, check; juicy details, check; likely release date, check. That Google Nexus tablet was rumored to have a tightened version of the Honeycomb OS and was to be released by summer. That timeframe came and went, and the rumor never generated anything more than the odd scoff.

Things are a bit different this time. Tech sites and more traditional news-oriented content providers, like the UK Telegraph and The Christian Science Monitor, are abuzz with opinions and discussion. This time, information is not coming from anonymous sources, but directly from the horse’s mouth. Never one to shy away from the media, Google’s Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, in a recent interview with an Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera revealed that the company had plans to “market” a high-end tablet within six months.

The choice of wording is largely overlooked by most writers and analysts: market, as opposed to make or produce. Nowhere in the statement did he make mention of any specific decision that Google itself—or even its soon-to-be-acquired partner Motorola Mobility—was to be the actual maker of the tablet or that it would sport the Google logo.

The timeframe of the planned tablet also gives some clues to the direction that Google may take. Six months is a long time in the mobile tech industry, and Google is known to have relatively short OS cycles. Moreover, the current Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android—for all its hyped tablet/phone convergence—is still, from all appearances, phone-leaning.

A certain possibility arises: Is Google starting the hype machine for a new version of Android—a more tailored version of ICS or a full-on 5.0—that will launch with a flagship tablet from one of its partners?

It’s all conjecture at this point, of course, but there is certain symmetry in the scenario described above. It avoids the pitfalls of directly competing with one’s own customers and also spreads out the risk. For all its hype, the Xoom Honeycomb flagship tablet was met with lukewarm response by consumers, and despite its PC market share and financial might, HP failed to capitalize on the well-liked WebOS platform when it designed its own tablet.

If Google does intend to build its own branded hardware, it would have to “go all out”. In his recent interview, Schmidt did give something of an indication that Google may indeed lean towards building their own hardware when he spoke about the fierce battle expected in the New Year.

As things now stand, Apple, with its iPad 2 dominates the high-end of the tablet market, and Amazon with its recently-launched Kindle Fire is showing signs that it intends to clean up at the lower-end (the middle of the market, however, appears hollow). For Google to compete with the market leader Apple and its upcoming iPad 3 tablet, it will have to beat it in multiple areas—and not in price alone.