Dell desperate to lose 'consumer' tag

Michael Dell talks up his firm's enterprise credentials and expects Android tablet-fuelled sales boost

Dell founder Michael Dell has said his company will sharpen its focus on the enterprise market, adding that it should no longer be considered as a "consumer PC" business.

Dell told the Wall Street Journal that two-thirds of the company's profit comes from solutions and services rather than PCs, and of the PCs sold, the vast majority are sold to businesses.

"I think a lot of people look at Dell and say: "Oh, Dell is a consumer PC company". That's not really at all what Dell is today," he said.

He added that the consumer PC business turned in a modest quarterly profit last quarter and the firm is expecting the same again for this period.

"We're investing a lot in our products. But is the fundamental epicentre of the company going to change from enterprise solutions, services, datacentres, storage, virtualisation, security? No."

He added that all of the companies that Dell has acquired in the past four years are focused in the enterprise and cater to the following areas: storage, services, datacentre, security, virtualisation, networking and software.

Dell also said that he sees a huge opportunity for Android tablet PCs in business, with the firm's Dell Streak and Dell Streak 7 getting a warm reception from the market.

"What's interesting [is that] business users are not now going to give up smartphones. They won't give up PCs [either]. So now you have a PC, you have a smartphone and you have a tablet. Sounds pretty good. [That's] industry growth," said Dell.