Dell forms communications unit
Following its smartphone launch, Dell sets up a separate business group. Consumer group will be combined with small and medium business.
Showing it's serious about smartphones, Dell is reorganizing the company around its newest product.
Dell is forming a new communications business unit to be helmed by Ron Garriques, a former Motorola executive brought in to run Dell's consumer business two years ago, Reuters first reported Friday. Dell officials confirmed that the consumer group will be folded into the small and medium business group run by Steve Felice.
Dell started selling its first smartphone at the end of November in China and Brazil only. The new unit run by Garriques will develop hardware and software for phones and other mobile Internet devices.
Dell has recently fallen even further behind its once-lofty perch as the world's biggest producer of PCs. It is now No. 3 behind Hewlett-Packard and Acer, both of which offer consumers computers and smartphones. The company is, like most consumer hardware makers, increasingly moving to smaller mobile computers like smartphones and laptops as the desktop market has cratered.