You'll need a new ultrabook, tablet, or hybrid to take advantage of Windows 8, says Michael Dell.
A Dell hybrid laptop announced back in 2010.
Dell is preparing a raft of tablets, hybrids, and ultrabooks for the Windows 8 launch later this year.
"The addition of capacitive touch capability into Windows 8, we think, will be a welcome addition...and will have a full complement of products at time of launch," Michael Dell said today during the company's first-quarter 2013 earnings conference call, in response to an analyst's question.
"We're totally lined up with Windows 8. You'll see us introduce tablets," he added.
And he suggests that Windows 8 touch-centric interface means that current PCs will not be a good fit.
"This is a transition where you generally are going to need a new PC, whether it's a tablet or an ultrabook with touch or a notebook with touch or a PC with touch or some derivative hybrid of all of the above type of products," he said.
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Needless to say, Dell wants to sell you a new PC, but he may have a point because of the heavy emphasis Microsoft is placing on the Metro touch interface.
And touch won't be cheap, echoing sentiment that Intel has also expressed. "But what I can tell you is that we think that the touchscreen products will certainly cost more. They're more in the price points and price bands that we tend to operate in," Dell said.
Analysts say Dell is, in effect, responding to Apple. "Dell acknowledges the Apple effect," Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes said in a research note today.
Dell's plans to bring out tablets "suggest to us that Apple continues to disrupt the traditional PC market," Reitzes said, referring to Apple's popular iPad.
The PC maker reported first-quarter earnings of $635 million, or 36 cents a share, on revenue of $14.42 billion, down 4 percent from a year ago.
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