When was the last time Dell made a smartphone? The only one I can really remember was the Dell Streak, and that had Android 2.2 – Froyo on it. That should tell you how long ago it was. The Dell Streak was basically the Galaxy Note before the market was ready for a 5-inch device. A couple years ago when the Streak was introduced no one ever thought they’d have a 5-inch device as a phone. Now you see so many people buying the Note 2, Droid DNA, and even the Original Galaxy Note. All of which are 5-inches or bigger. But according to MarketsandMarkets, Dell is officially saying “Adios” to the smartphone business in a global perspective. This is not all that surprising given that they haven’t done well in the mobile market, or the Android market more specifically. But the smartphone business is expected to reach $150.3 billion by 2014, now that’s a lot of potential dough Dell is losing out on.
The Head of Dell’s Consumer Business, Jeff Clarke, confirmed yesterday at the Dell World Conference that they won’t be jumping back into the smartphone ring anytime soon. “It needs a lot of investments to really be successful” according to Clarke. And why is Dell leaving Android? “It’s a content play with Android. Amazon is selling books and Google is making it up with search. So far we couldn’t find a way to build a business on Android,” according to Clarke.
But Dell isn’t out of the Mobile business, they are focusing on Windows Tablets now. Dell is working on quite a few Windows 8 and Windows 8 RT tablets, like the XPS10, XPS12 and Latitude 10. Clarke also added that this doesn’t mean they are giving up on Android, but at this point they aren’t planning to release anything anytime soon for Android lovers.
So Dell has sold the Streak and Aero running Android, they also had the Thunder which never got released, I wonder why? None of them did particularly well, which isn’t all that surprising. But it’s surprising to see them just drop the smartphone business all together. The Android ecosystem needs Dell as a manufacturer, as much as it needs HTC, Sony and the others that aren’t doing so well. If Samsung is killing off competition like this we won’t see much innovation from them. And that’ll hurt the consumer. So hopefully we’ll see Dell make a comeback in the smartphone space and more in-particular the Android world. It’s always good to see plenty of manufacturers using the Android OS on their devices.
So we’ll keep you updated with what happens with Dell, and if this turns out to be a good or bad decision on their part. What do you think of this big decision from Dell? Let us know in the comments below.