Dell CEO Michael Dell said AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) will launch Dell's Streak mobile Internet device later this summer, but declined to provide any more details. The announcement represents a deepening of the relationship between the two companies; AT&T is also going to launch Dell's first smartphone, the Android-powered Aero, sometime in the first half of this year.
The Streak "will be available starting next month, first with our partner O2 Telefonica in Europe, then later this summer with our pretty good partner here in the United States, AT&T," Dell said at the Citrix Synergy conference, according to media reports. The Streak is rumored to run Google's Android platform, sport a 5-inch display and include 3G cellular, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. An AT&T spokeswoman declined to comment.
In other tablet news, it appears that several of Dell's competitors are retooling their own tablet efforts in the wake of the success of Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad (Apple has sold more than 1 million iPads). According to Bloomberg, which cited an unnamed source, Samsung is tinkering with its ereader and might add 3G wireless connectivity, a color screen and a better battery. "Samsung is revisiting its approach to the ereader market in the U.S.," a Samsung spokeswoman told Bloomberg.
Hewlett-Packard has backed off discussing its Slate device, which it unveiled earlier this year, thus fueling speculation that the company is building a tablet running Palm's (NASDAQ:PALM) webOS platform. When HP acquired Palm for $1.2 billion in late April, Todd Bradley, executive vice president of HP's Personal Systems Group, said the company expects to take webOS beyond smartphones, possibly to tablets and netbooks for both consumers and enterprise users.
Additionally, Asustek said it is accelerating development of a tablet running on Android.
For more:
- see this eWeek article
- see this Engagdet post
- see this Bloomberg article
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