Dell Inc plans to release its first consumer oriented tablet in late 2012, entering the already hotly contested market that has already claimed Hewlett-Packard as a victim.
Reuters reports:
The once-dominant corporation founded by Michael Dell has seen a growing crop of tablets and smartphones entice consumers away from PCs. But Dell learned from the hastiness of some of its peers and understands better now how consumers value the “ecosystem” of a tablet as much as the hardware, chief commercial officer Steve Felice said.
The Texas company, which has been slipping in the global PC sales ranks, did make an entry into the tablet market with its enterprise focused “Streak” tablet. It now plans a push into the consumer market.
Felice says, “We have been taking our time. The general failure of everyone that’s tried to introduce a tablet outside of Apple” suggested Dell made a prudent choice, Felice said in an interview. “You will see us enter this market in a bigger way toward the end of the year. So we are not really deemphasizing it, we are really being very careful how we enter it.
“When you are talking about PC, people are more focused on the hardware itself. When you are talking about the tablet or the smartphone, people are interested in the overall environment its operating in,” he added. “As we have matured in this, we are spending a lot more time in the overall ecosystem.”
Felice did not state what operating system the new tablet would run, saying both Android and the upcoming Windows 8 were viable options.
“We like Windows 8 but we continue to develop with Android as well. We are still going to be more choice-driven, based on the feedback we get from customers.”
“When we introduce the products, they will be consumer products, but we are going to make sure that they are very compatible with the business marketplace, which we don’t think Apple has addressed,” Felice said. “There’s lot of use in the commercial sector that requires security and more compatibility, and I think we will be able to address that in a better way.”
