Dell is set to jump into the increasingly crowded consumer tablet market this year. The company’s chief commercial officer, Steve Felice, told Reuters that the company will make its entry in late 2012. “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,” he said.
Felice also recognized that the tablet market is different from the PC market. “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 said. “As we have matured in this, we are spending a lot more time in the overall ecosystem.”
Dell revealed few details about its plans. Both Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 and Google’s Android operating systems were described as “viable options.” The final decision could come down to “feedback we get from customers.”
Dell has dabbled in the tablet market with devices such as the original 5-inch Streak and the larger 7-inch Streak 7, neither of which it sells anymore.
Read more: Reuters