Dell hints it's working on smartphone
It wasn't much more than an offhand comment this time, but Michael Dell's got the gadget-obsessed stirred up again.
In an interview with Om Malik of GigaOm, Dell was asked about the company's plans in the smartphone industry. At first he gave a vague, corporate PR-type answer: "We are certainly looking at the whole smartphone category, but I wouldn't expect anything anytime soon." But when Malik pressed him about whether his company was more interested in a Symbian or Android OS for any potential handheld device, Dell was slightly more informative.
(Credit: Dell)"We're not ready to publicly disclose our plans there...we're kind of working on that," he said.
Well, it's about time. Dell's been out of the handheld business for over a year, but there have been signs it's been testing the waters, such as when it picked up Zing in August. One round of rumors put the device as Android-based and more recently as Windows Mobile.
Dell did warn not to expect any product anytime soon, so perhaps they're waiting for Windows Mobile 7? Stay tuned.
Erica Ogg is a CNET News reporter who covers Apple, HP, Dell, and other PC makers, as well as the consumer electronics industry. She's also one of the hosts of CNET News' Daily Podcast. In her non-work life, she's a history geek, a loyal Dodgers fan, and a mac-and-cheese connoisseur. E-mail Erica.





Wow, with that much excitement, I'm sure it'll kind of fail!
Me too!!
Dell and Microsoft are devoid of originality and criticize Apple only to later copy it.
Another thing is that dell is a hardware company. It does not get software. But smartphone software is such a different beast -- just try to remember how much people hated Motorola's phone software and liked Nokia's, and how much Apple kicked everybody's ass with the iPhone software... Creating a new brand, and consequently creating a separate business unit away from the hardware people, is the only way Dell will have some success in the mobile space.
The drive still comes from Dell through a extension of the company that knows how to connect with the new edgey consumer. That way you don't get the "inexpensive" wal-mart Dell that you use to.
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January 28, 2009 10:24 AM PST
- Every new smart phone that hits the market these days some how resembles the phone from the boys at Apple. RIM thought they were making a huge breakthrough when they released the Storm but it's basically a Blackberry iPhone. No new phone these days is going to top the iPhone, not with all the 3rd party apps that's available.
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