Roger Kay, President of EndPoint Technologies, shared his ideas about where Dell currently stands in the market at Dell World 2012 in Austin, Texas (full video below). As far as Kay is concerned, the company has a long transition ahead, which can take up to a decade to adjust. Some of Dell’s faults are not having the ability to break into the mobility business, and also the way the company prides itself on being a solutions company, so much in fact, it is unable to see other growing opportunities to create new products to put on the market.

“Dell has played footsie with other platforms,” Kay said.

What he was referring to was Dell’s Windows 8, which is where the money has to be made because the company has no other platform to rely on for income. Dell failed to break into the business of mobility. The company is unable to launch a phone in the United States due to the stiff competition already on the playing field and also because of the lack of carrier relations.

Since we can rule out Dell’s possibility of ever breaking into the business of phones, the only other obvious choice would be tablets, but according to Kay, Microsoft has already made an embarrassment of itself in that department because the company had launched tablets but fell short. Apple, on the other hand, has tablets and they are a great success.

So why was Apple able to succeed when Microsoft fell short? It’s not due to market favoritism. It’s due to the delivery of the tablet. Manufacturers cannot launch a product while in the midst of uncertainty. They cannot launch a notebook that can also be a tablet because they are not sure what consumers want. What Apple has successfully done is the company had the idea to create a tablet and it was completely committed to the idea. There was no uncertainty.

As stated before, Dell prides itself on being a solutions company, so there is no room in the limelight for newer, cooler products, such as the XPS to share the marketing budget.

According to what Kay touched on, Dell needs to stop trying to convince everyone that it is a solutions company and focus on developing newer, cooler products in  other growing markets. Yes, it is good to stick to what you know because it’s safe, but a company can easily venture out and explore newer ways to make money while continuing to produce the money-maker.

See Kay’s full interview below.