In what’s now more or less a formality, a Dell spokesman told PC World that the company has no intention of producing more smartphones for the United States market. While a few of its Android devices like the 5-inch Dell Streak gained some notoriety, the Venue line and others never caught on in Dell’s home country, at least not enough to make them profitable. Dell is continuing to produce and sell smartphones in India and some Asian territories. The last we heard, Dell had partnered with Chinese search engine Baidu for a special edition of the Streak Pro.
“Mobility products have shorter lifecycles than laptops and desktops,” said the representative, referring to customers’ tendency to keep computers for much longer than the standard 2-year contract cycle for smartphones (in the Americas at least). Dell didn’t have much success in that department, either: very few of its Venue and Streak phones and tablets were ever sold through wireless carriers, where the majority of American consumers buy their mobile hardware.
Dell did mention that it has plans for mobile hardware later this year, but don’t get your hopes up: that’s almost certainly a reference to Windows 8 tablets or similar devices, which will be able to run on the same ARM-based hardware that Android and other platforms use. So long, Dell – the Streak was novel, even if you couldn’t keep it up to date. Don’t feel so bad; it’s not like HP could do any better.
[via SlashGear]
Dell needs to Sell the Company and Give the Stock Holders their money back, Once Microsoft gets it act together Purveyors of Android Filth like HTC will soon follow Dell in retreat.