Dell smartphone arriving next month?

The wait for Dell's iPhone rival could be over as early as next month according to reports in the Wall Street Journal.

The company is preparing to release its first smartphone in a bid to revitalise a business hit hard by crumbling PC sales.

The world's second largest manufacturer of PCs, which has been designing prototypes for over a year, is focusing on smartphones - the class of high-end devices that encompasses Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion's Blackberry, according to the newspaper.

It has not as yet been confirmed if the phone will be based on Google's Android operating system or Microsoft's Windows Mobile software. One model will feature a touchscreen, however, not unlike the iPhone's.

However, Dell has not finalised its plans and may still abandon them, the Journal added without elaborating.

Representatives for Dell and Microsoft declined to comment, and Google representatives were not available for comment.

Smartphones - high end mobile devices that can assume many of the functions found traditionally on PCs, such as playing videos and music - are the fastest growing segment of the mobile phone industry.

IT consultancy IDC expects smartphone shipments to climb 8.9 per cent globally in 2009, far outstripping a decline in the overall worldwide mobile phone market.

US PC giant Dell, which lost its mantle of world's largest PC maker to Hewlett-Packard about two years ago, has toyed with the idea of selling mobile phones since early 2007, the Journal said.

Chief executive Michael Dell, who returned in 2007 to the firm he founded, has explored new markets, but earlier attempts to diversify into new areas, including a plan to sell digital music players, were dropped.

Dell hired Ron Garriques, Motorola's former cell phone chief, to re-energize its consumer products division. But, under a non-compete agreement, Garriques was barred from working on mobile phones until February 2009.