Michael Dell: We like Android, but work on Windows 8 tablets 'encouraging'
Michael Dell, CEO of Dell, said his company remains interested in Android tablets, but also noted Windows 8 will be a viable competitor.
On a second quarter conference call with analysts, Dell said the company’s early work on Windows 8 "looks to be pretty encouraging."
As noted previously, Dell's tablet line-up is lacking. Dell didn't say much about the company's future tablet plans, but indicated it would be a likely player with Windows 8 and Android devices.
When asked about his take on Google's purchase of Motorola for $12.5 billion, Dell noted the deal hasn't closed yet.
Here's how Dell handicapped Google-Motorola and the tablet market overall:
It's too early to say because Google obviously hasn't finished the transaction and they haven't said a whole lot about it. Certainly patents play a big role here and having Android with a stronger ability to exhaust patent claims against it probably sets up an interesting competitive dynamic. We're still quite interested Android. I'll also tell you that our early work on Windows 8 on the tablet side looks to be pretty encouraging and so we think it's shaping up to be a competitive environment. I don't think beyond those two that there are viable alternatives that make sense so there's a lot of other noise in the market that I don't think will amount to much of anything.
In other words, Dell, which obviously can't license Apple's iOS, sees a three horse tablet race at some point.
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