Dell may move into smart phone market

San Francisco: Dell Inc, the world's second-largest maker of personal computers, may be entering the smart- phone market as soon as next month, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the effort.

Dell has had a team of engineers in Chicago working for a year on so-called smart phones, handsets that let users surf the Web and check e-mail, the paper said. The company hasn't decided whether any will be released, the Journal reported.

Michael Dell, who retook the chief executive officer job two years ago after sales and profit fell, said in September that the company may eventually sell smaller devices with features similar to smart phones. Analysts have speculated about Dell's entry into the mobile-phone market since it hired Ron Garriques, the former head of Motorola Inc's mobile-phone unit, in 2007.

"They're looking at a new market of opportunities," said Roger Kay, president of research firm Endpoint Technologies Associates in Wayland, Massachusetts. "You have to ask the question what choices they have and where do they go, if not phones."

Dell is developing prototypes that would rival Apple Inc's iPhone. The prototypes are powered by Google Inc's Android operating system and Microsoft Corp's Windows Mobile software, the Journal said, citing unnamed sources.