Dell officially says goodbye to smartphones

Dell has officially announced its exit from the smartphone industry.  Jeff Clarke, Dell's top consumer products executive, made the announcement on Tuesday at the Dell World conference. Clarke says that smartphones require too much of an investment for a company to become successful. Pointing to Amazon's strategy, which involves selling tablets at break-even and more than making it up by selling content and storage, Clarke calls Android a "content play," and says that Dell could not find a way to make a business out of Android.

Dell was known for its large screened devices such as the 5 inch Dell Streak which Dell dropped in August 2011. The Texas based company had stopped selling its devices in the U.S. earlier this year, although some units still could be found in China. That is over with now, as well.

The whole Android smartphone deal with Dell was marred by company founder Michael Dell's feelings toward Google's open source OS. During the 2011 Dell World conference, he said that Android had not "developed to expectations." He blamed the software for the failure of Dell's smartphones to sell. But it is all water under the bridge as Dell has officially hung up on the smartphone business.

The future for Dell remains computers and Windows based tablets. Clarke actually hinted that Dell is still looking at Android, but considering the past history, we wouldn't count on seeing the green robot hanging around Dell anytime soon.

source: Forbes