Dell Ditches a Business It Never Really Entered

The company’s vice-president of global operations was pretty direct:

We’ve been really clear about smartphones – we’re not going to do smartphones. We’re not going to be in the smartphone hardware business. We’re going to provide smartphone solutions, we’re going to be the preferred BYOD [bring your own device] provider of solutions in the marketplace.

The company means that it will now focus on developing touch-enabled devices that use the Windows 8 and Windows RT operating systems from Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT). Dell already has three Windows-based tablets out in the world, but sales have been disappointing. Of course, sales of Microsoft’s own Surface tablets have also been disappointing.

From a five-year high of more than $25, Dell trades today at $10.48 in a 52-week range of $8.69 to $18.36.

Paul Ausick