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Dell CEO: Let’s be honest with ourselves, Android tablets suck, so we’ll wait for Windows 8

Categories: Android, Dell
By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 at 3:56 AM
delldude

Michael Dell, the CEO of a corporation that produces some of the most boring consumer electronics hardware in the industry and who is desperately trying to eat some of HP’s share in the enterprise space, recently earned himself the title of “Master of the Obvious” by saying this at the 2011 Web 2.0 Summit:

“If you look at the tablet market, you have to say right now it’s an iPad market. The Android stuff has not done fantastically well, I think I’m being fair. Microsoft has a pretty good shot with Windows 8, we’re pretty excited with what they’re doing.”

As much as we want to yell at the top of our lungs that someone who is in a position to say something about the industry shares the same opinion we’ve held since the Motorola Xoom started landing in people’s hands earlier this year, we would also like to remind you that this is the same guy who said Apple would go bankrupt and that they should just give investors their money back.

Will Ice Cream Sandwich, Google’s latest version of Android that was announced just a few short hours ago in Hong Kong, change things? It’s tough to say since we haven’t seen any Ice Cream Sandwich tablets announced, but we’re pretty sure we’ll see some either at the Consumer Electronics Show in January of next year or Mobile World Congress just a short month later.

Now as for Windows 8, we need to see it on something using ARM before we can say anything. The Developer Preview that’s currently available for download is buggy as hell and only runs on x86. We know NVIDIA, Texas Instruments, and Qualcomm have committed to supporting Windows 8, now we just have to see manufacturers take those chips and build something that competes with the iPad not only on price, but also on build quality and design.

[Photo Credit: Flickr]

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

  • Anonymous

    I’m far from a (Michael) Dell fan but your second paragraph isn’t a fair use of his quote.  At the time he made the statement Apple was its lowest point ever, probably not far from bankruptcy and had no clear direction or plan, at least from an outsiders perspective.  

    So his assessment of Apple at the time (you know – context), while possibly harsh, was certainly not out of line.  He simply did the same thing with his comment on Android, though in a significantly less harsh and very accurate manner.

  • Anonymous

    Dell used to make quality stuff years ago. Now its just boring junk. So if the CEO of boring junk says Android sucks you may want to check it out.

  • Jameslynn

    I agree with this. There’s no standardization with android at all. The specs get confusing from manufacturer to manufacturer. The tablets support 2.0- whatever. Some play flash video, some do not. Some support the google markeplace, some do not. I have been researching getting an android tablet for 5 days and I still have no idea what I want from what I have seen. Rooting, jailbreaking hacking to make them function as they should. I’m not into all that.