A Reuter’s exclusive: Dell Inc. is planning to launch a consumer tablet in late 2012 in what is becoming a very competitive and hotly contested arena with the latest release of Toshiba’s Excite “world’s thinnest tablet” , iPad 3 rumours and other new tablets currently making tech news headlines.

Founded by Michael Dell, the once dominant Texan company, has seen a growth in smartphones and tablets enticing consumers away from the PC. However, the company has learned from the hastiness of its peers who have entered into the market that consumers value the “ecosysystem” of a tablet as much as the hardware. Chief commercial officer, Steve Felice commented at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that “it now plans a bigger push into the consumer arena” after the company tentatively tried out the enterprise-focused, “Streak” tablet when Dell PC sales began to decline in the global market. While rival companies HP and Research in Motion introduced their TouchPad and Playbook respectively to rival that of Apple Inc, and failed to do so, Dell chose to keep a low profile until the timing was right.

Felice continues, “We have been taking our time and you will see us enter this market in a bigger way toward the end of the year. So we are not really deemphasizing it, we are really being very careful how we enter it.”

While Felice was not forthcoming about about which non-Apple operating system Dell might adopt, Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 or Google’s popular Android saying both were viable options, he did reveal that he liked the feel of Microsoft’s touch enable operating system that would be well timed when it emerges later this year.

When Dell do eventually introduce the products, they will be consumer products that are very compatible with the business marketplace, which Dell don’t think Apple has addressed.  ”There’s lot of use in the commercial sector that requires security and more compatibility, said Felice “And I think we will be able to address that in a better way.”