• Wall Street Journal, Friday, January 30, 2009 11:15 AM

Dell is preparing a move into cell phones as early as next month, sources tell Justin Scheck and Yukari Iwatani Kane. A group of engineers have been toiling away in a secret lab in the Chicago area focusing on smart phones that use Google's Android operating system and Microsoft's Windows Mobile software.

Dell may still abandon the effort, however, and a spokesperson says, "We haven't committed to anything." The move would put Dell into direct competition with Apple's iPhone and Research In Motion's BlackBerry.

A former Motorola employee, John Thode, heads up the phone effort, as well as overseeing Dell's development of netbooks. He has operated the development group in isolation from others at Dell, which is based in Round Rock, Texas, and details of the project have even been kept secret from some executives at the company, sources tell Scheck and Iwatani Kane.

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