Dell to re-enter the tablet market in late 2012, likely with Windows 8

Dell has had trouble in the mobile and tablet space. The company’s CEO, Michael Dell, has continuously bashed Android, and its Streak phone-tablet line was a commercial failure that was eventually abandoned. The once-dominant PC corporation has examined the company’s shortcomings and now understands that consumers value the “ecosystem” of a tablet as much as the hardware, according to Dell chief commercial officer Steve Felice. “We have been taking our time. The general failure of everyone that’s tried to introduce a tablet outside of Apple” said Felice in an interview with Reuters. “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.” The company hasn’t announced which non-Apple operating system it might adopt, saying both Android and Windows 8 were viable options. However, Felice did say that he liked the feel of Microsoft’s touch-enabled operating system, which should debut later this year. Dell plans to focus on the consumer level of products rather than the enterprise, although the company’s products will remain compatible within the business marketplace. “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,” said Felice. “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.”

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