Why Dell needs a handheld

news analysis Dell may no longer be the darling of the PC industry, but a tiny gadget could do wonders to help it win back the hearts of mainstream consumers.

It's been a rollercoaster of a year for the company, and now could be a good time for Dell to take another risk: Offering a new handheld device. It could be a smart phone, or a portable music/video player that connects to the Web and a PC for downloading and transferring content.

It's a perfect opportunity for Dell to show it's not just a PC manufacturer, but that it's a consumer products company. Its competitors have made the transition--Apple dropped "Computer" from its name this year even before the iPhone madness ensued. And Hewlett-Packard has been steadily moving into the home with entertainment and communication-oriented devices.

There have been rumors that Dell would be launching a smart phone since Ron Garriques came onboard in February. Then a Forbes article last week got the rumor mill churning again. Perhaps more indicative that something is in the works, Dell purchased Zing Systems this summer, and trademarked and registered a similarly named online content portal.

So is there a handheld device coming in the future? Dell's not saying, though the biggest stage for a potential launch, the International Consumer Electronics Show, is in early January.

Dell is definitely setting itself up to do something new. The company has brought in a host of new executives, including Garriques, who found success reviving Motorola's handset business with its line of Razr phones. His hiring is part of the turnaround mode that Dell has been in for almost a year now, and the company has methodically begun to check things off the list: Trimming its workforce, reassessing IT infrastructure and its ill-behaved accounting department, and refocusing on industrial design and consumer appeal. Not to mention switching up its sales strategy to include a real retail presence for the first time.

But there's more to do. Dell is bleeding market share to HP in its core PC business and is embarrassingly close to being overtaken by Acer for second place in the notebook market. Dell needs something, and a handheld device could be a buzz-worthy product that brings it a new level of consumer attention. (And if it wanted to add in some fun, multi-touch functionality, that would be good, too. We know it has the technology, as it demonstrated at Oracle Open World last month.)

In the meantime, here are some reasons why Dell needs a handheld device:

• It has nothing. Dell axed its Axim device earlier this year when the bottom fell out of the PDA market. While that was arguably wise, there was no follow-through with any sort of next-generation handheld, like a phone/Internet device--or anything at all. Even leaving out the iPhone from Apple, chief rival HP has the iPaq, which isn't the prettiest thing you've ever seen, but it is packed with current technology and has been well-received.

So Dell has been MIA. In fairness, there have been more pressing issues. But Dell's reputation and balance sheet could greatly benefit from an iPhone-like, or even an iPaq-like, device.