Although so far Dell has not seen any tangible success with its Streak media tablets, the company believes that its new roadmap for slate-type systems is competitive and it will enable Dell to challenge Apple iPad. The company claims that its future tablets will be powered by Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 8, but the company may also produce Google Android-based slates.

"We have a roadmap for tablets that we have not announced yet. You will see some announcements for the back half of the year. We do not think that this market is closed off in any way. [...] We are very encouraged by the touch capability we are seeing in the beta versions of Windows 8, we may also make Android tablets again," said Steve Felice, chief commercial officer at Dell, in an interview with Reuters news-agency.

Dell has scrapped its Streak media tablets due to lack of demand and serious competition from companies like Asustek Computer, Samsung Electronics as well as Apple iPad, which is dominating the market these days. To make the matters worse, with Amazon Kindle Fire and B&N Nook tablet devices with large media libraries on the market, "simple" tablets like Dell's Streak have thin chances for success.

Apparently, Dell no longer wants to release media tablets, but wants to concentrate on business tablets, where it will compete against its traditional rivals, such as Hewlett-Packard or Lenovo Group.

"On the commercial side there are a lot of concerns about security, interoperability, systems and device management, and I think Dell is in the best position to meet those," said Mr. Felice.

Tags: Dell, Streak, Android, Windows 8