Google only gave Asus four months to build the Nexus 7 tablet, Asus chairman Jonney Shih told AllThingsD.

“Our engineers told me it is like torture,” Shih said in an AllThingsD interview. "They ask a lot.”

Harsh!

But Google is going up against some stiff competition, Apple and Amazon, so it needs everyone's A-game — including that of Asus' engineers. 

Google's Android chief had some high praise for their new partner, too, which appeared to keep up with Google's demands well enough.

“I don’t think there would have been any other partner that could move that fast,” Android chief Andy Rubin told AllThingsD. “We went from zero to working product in four months.”

The Nexus 7 project was even known as "Project A-team" at Asus, which found itself throwing more and more engineers at the project, according to the AllThingsD interview.

Google is essentially selling the tablet at cost to promote its version of Android as a viable tablet alternative to the iPad and the Kindle Fire.