Back in December, Dell quietly discontinued their Streak 7 tablet from the U.S. market only a few months after the 5-inch variant suffered the same fate. The company was quick to point out that the Streak 10 Pro is available in China and the Windows-based Latitude ST was launched in November for education, finance and healthcare markets. Nevertheless, the move effectively removed Dell from the consumer tablet race in its home country.

According to a report on Reuters, Dell is already planning a comeback, but having learned from the hastiness of some of its peers it is taking its time to get it right. Steve Felice, President and Chief Commercial Officer for Consumer & SMB at Dell, told the news outlet it's planning a bigger push into the consumer arena putting better emphasis on the "ecosystem" and not just on the hardware.

"When you are talking about PC, people are more focused on the hardware itself. When you are talking about the tablet or the smartphone, people are interested in the overall environment its operating in," he said. "As we have matured in this, we are spending a lot more time in the overall ecosystem."

Felice confirmed the company is targeting a late-2012 timeframe for the relaunch of its consumer tablet assault, but he kept mum about about which mobile operating system Dell would favor. Although he praised the feel of Microsoft's touch-enabled Windows 8 operating system, the executive clarified that they continue to develop with Android as well, and are still going to be choice-driven based on customer feedback.