Despite a boatload of Android-powered tablets that have been released in the past 12 months, including Samsung"s Galaxy Tab, the Motorola Xoom and others, along with the Blackberry Playbook and HP"s TouchPad with their own operating systems, the tablet market is still dominated by Apple"s iPad. Apple should announce new sales numbers for the iPad later today during its financial news conference and they are expected to blow away sales of all the other tablets on the market.
But Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell believes that Microsoft"s upcoming Windows 8 OS could be a challenger to Apple"s iPad and its iOS operating system. Business Insider reports that during a tech conference in San Francisco today, Dell said, "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."
Dell tried to sell its own tablet, the 5-inch Android powered Streak, but it discontinued the device due to poor sales in August 2011 after launching it a year earlier. Dell launched a 10 inch version of the Streak tablet earlier this year but it is only available for sale in China.
Dell clearly likes what Microsoft is doing with Windows 8, even bringing in Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to speak at last week"s Dell World event where he showed off the developer"s preview version to an audience. Dell is rumored to be working on a Windows 8-based tablet which could launch in the third quarter of 2012.