Dell Developing Smart Phone for China

According to a report by the Associated Press, PC maker Dell Inc. is working on a smart phone for China Mobile Ltd., China's biggest cell phone carrier.

Rumors of a Dell phone date at least to 2007. Now Dell spokesman Matthew Parretta says the company showed a "proof of concept mobile device prototype" at an event hosted by China Mobile in Beijing on Monday.

Despite reports that it had introduced a new product in China, Dell said that it has only confirmed that it is working with China Mobile on a cell phone.

Dell did show off some device prototypes, but did not make any announcements about form factors or when it might introduce a phone, said Andrew Bowins, a spokesman for Dell.

The computer maker supports China Mobile's Ophone development, which is an open mobile software platform for mobile Internet, Dell said. The company declined to say which operating system its phone would use.

Past rumors have linked a Lenovo phone running Android with the Ophone name.

Dell was participating in a China Mobile event, where the operator announced its mobile application store, Bowins said.

Rumors of a new phone from Dell have been circulating all year. The computer maker once made a handheld device, the Axim PDA, but cancelled it in 2007.

Dell would not comment on whether it intends to introduce a phone in other regions beyond China. If it does, it would be entering an increasingly crowded and competitive market. The introduction of the iPhone, and subsequent challengers including the Palm Pre and Android devices, has changed customer expectations for how smartphones should look and what they should do. Still, the market for cell phones continues to grow and China is the largest cell-phone market in the world, so Dell may be hoping to capitalize on both trends.

(August 19, 2009)

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