By now you may have noticed the Dell Streak 7 tablets are being discontinued, at least in North America. China will still have a 10-inch version, and the 7 will still continue to be distributed in a number of markets including Australia. Earlier in 2011 the Android based 5-inch version of the Streak bit the dust as well; and that was the last of the android-based Dell tablets.

Positioned between the Apple iPad and the Amazon Kindle Fire, the Dell Streak 7 should have been “stuck in the middle with you”, to quote an old Bob Dylan song. The issue seems to have been there were just too few of you that actually wanted to buy it.

The death knell for the product from day one could easily have been the resolution of 800x480; just fine for a 5-inch screen, but not advanced enough for the Streak 7. And speaking of screen size; that may have been a complicating factor, just barely large enough to be a tablet, but not really phone sized. The gray zone seems to be 5 to 7 inches, and there will be additional contenders there.

Dell has made it clear, however, they are definitely not married to any particular OS, and will seek diversity. What that could mean is a real need for Dell to step back and look at the bigger picture context, and obvious complexity, of multiple OS partners and vendors with an eye to making that work profitably over a longer time frame. To make things more interesting, Dell, as previously mentioned, is not currently offering any Android-based tablets in the USA. Nevertheless Dell made the following statement: “Dell remains committed to the mobility market.... We remain committed to expanding our reach beyond PCs with a targeted set of open, standards-based mobility solutions and services designed for commercial and mobile professional customers.”Apparently Dell plans on developing new tablets, but may have significant hurdles to overcome. Windows 8 debuts sometime mid-2012, and some observers think Dell was not all that happy with Android. As of today they don't have any Android-based tablets in the USA. Consequently, you may need to get out the time-travel binoculars if you want to see Dell's next tablet any time soon; and that's before you consider the fact that Windows share of the tablet market declined markedly in the last 12 months, losing almost half of what it had previously. Right now you will see Windows on approximately a quarter of new tablet products from all makers combined.