Dell has announced, unceremoniously, that it will exit the world of Android smartphones and tablets. Truth be told, the company hasn’t released a new Android product since the failed (and awful) Streak 7 all the way back in early 2011, but Dell’s vice chairman Jeff Clarke told attendees at an Austin-based conference that they will not re-enter the game.
According to Clarke, “[Dell] couldn’t find a way to build a business on Android.” He said that because Google and Amazon can offer content such as movies, books, magazines, TV shows and music to provide extra value, smaller OEMs are unable to sufficiently differentiate themselves in terms of hardware. It didn’t help that Dell’s hardware was decidedly mediocre, and they entered the market at a time when the software paired with Android tablets was woefully underdeveloped.
It’s unlikely Dell could compete with the big boys now even if they were to reenter the space, but the company clearly sees value in tablets as a category — they just released a number of Windows 8 hybrid notebooks, which have proven to be quite popular.
Source: Forbes
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