Apple said Monday that it has sold over two million iPads in less than two months.

It began shipping the dingus, which only launched April 3, in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK over the weekend. Reuters says Japanese and Australian buyers "stormed" the shops while others in London, Munich and Paris stood in all-night queues. The hot new device will be available in nine more countries in July including Ireland, Austria and Mexico with broader distribution slated for later this year. Bootleg devices are selling in China.

Internal targets are said to be to move 10 million units this year, a number iPad will exceed if the pace keeps up.

Of course it'll have to dodge a mounting number of would-be competitors and there's renewed talk of pinched supplies after Apple delayed iPad's international release a month because of trouble meeting demand.

Intel, as promised, turned up at Computex in Taiwan with word of a low-power Atom-based SoC chip called Oak Trail that it says is meant for tablets and anorexially thin netbook starting next year. It'll run Windows, the freebie Android and Chrome operating systems as well as MeeGo, the Intel/Nokia Linux. Besides enhanced battery life it's supposed to have full HD-video playback and HDMI support.

Meanwhile, HP is busily ripping Windows out its rival slate to chase the ARM-based iPad apparently with Palm's WebOS. Dell's got the Android-based Streak with its Qualcomm chip about to hit in Britain. Verizon and Google are doing tablet; Sony's working on a device; Huawei's got a Qualcomm unit like Dell called the S7. Acer's supposed to be out in October with an Android widget and also means to pick up MeeGo. Micro-Star's got its own Windows-based Wind Pad built on an Atom chip along with an Android unit for company. Eee netbook pioneer Asustek is promising a Windows 7-based Flash-running Eee Pad in Q1 and a cheaper Eee Tablet, the Wall Street Journal says, along with an on-board app store developed in concert with Microsoft and Intel, which is supplying the thing's processor.

Obviously Apple's way ahead in the applications department. It says there are now 5,000 iPad-specific applications available for the thing that take advantage of its larger screen and faster chip on top of almost all of the 200,000 apps in its Apps Store originally designed for the iPod and iPhone that run on it too.