Dell Targets Government With Fed-Friendly Tablet

Dell is courting the U.S. government with the release of the Dell Venue 11 Pro tablet that, out of the box, comes preapproved for use by security-minded contractors, including the Department of Defense.

The Venue 11 Pro tablet includes a fingerprint reader and a built-in CAC card reader for two-factor authentication. More importantly, Dell said, it comes with the Fed's FIPS 140-2 rating, along with end-point encryption for keeping data secure.

The new Dell Venue 11 Pro tablet has a starting price of $700 and is available beginning Nov. 11 on Dell.com.

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"Tablets have evolved and many of our government customers don't view them as compute accessories; rather, these are laptop replacement consumption and productivity devices," said Tracy Pavillard, director of federal civilian agencies and federal channel business for Dell Federal. "These are laptop-level specifications that we are delivering with the Venue 11 Pro Secure. Combine that with keyboard and integrated LTE service, and we are seeing government tablet growth in the triple digits."

Dell's Federal Channel business accounts for close to 60 percent of Dell's overall federal business, Pavillard said. The tablet was announced Wednesday at Dell World in Austin, Texas.

The 1.6-lb Dell Venue 11 Pro runs Windows 8.1 and features Intel's latest mobile chip the Core M processor, has a swappable battery, an HD 10.8-inch display, with a CAC card and USB reader and a SD memory card slot. Other features include Office 2012 and can be managed by Dell's KACE mobile management system.

Dell's tablet, Pavillard said, will be one of only three tablets on the DoD's approved product list.

Samsung's Galaxy tablets (Galaxy S4, Galaxy Note 3 and NotePRO) running Qualcomm Snapdragon processors also are authorized for classified use by the U.S. government, as is Apple and its iOS 6 tablets.

Solution providers said tablets are increasingly gaining traction within businesses that are seeing more companies ready to switch laptop deployment to beefier tablets outfitted with laptop-like features, such as hard-drive encryption, fingerprint readers and built-in CAC card readers for two-factor authentication.

"We are just now seeing the first versions of tablets that could be considered true laptop replacements," said Ira Grossman, CTO of end-user and mobile computing at national solution provider MCPc, whose Anyplace Workspace is centered on providing anyplace, anytime, anywhere computing to corporations.

However, Grossman said he doubts a fed-friendly tablet makes a big difference, given the number of solution providers offering hardware enhancements to lockdown notebooks on par with out-of-the-box secure laptops. "Specific devices matter less than a comprehensive mobile device management strategy," Grossman said.

Dell's fed-tablet push comes as the worldwide market for tablets has grown 11.5 percent in the third quarter for the year, according to IDC. Growth was fueled by back-to-school promotions, IDC said, along with strong sales in the U.S. market.

Despite the fact Dell failed to crack the list of top worldwide tablet manufacturers, the OEM is well-positioned to see positive tablet growth in the commercial space, according to Jean Philippe Bouchard, IDC Research Director for Tablets.

"Any OEM, such as Dell, with good alignment with partners and an established presence in the commercial space is poised to do well as more enterprises buy tablets as primary computing devices," Bouchard said.

While U.S. consumer tablet growth continues growth slowly, Bouchard said, commercial tablet sales within enterprises will growth rapidly. "Nearly all the new growth in the tablet market will be coming from the largely untapped non-education commercial sales," he said.

IDC reported in October that while the tablet market continues to grow, sales are cooling as the consumer market becomes saturated and long life cycles of up to three years for tablets challenge replacement sales. Commercial sales, Bouchard said, will buck that trend and give the channel new revenue potential.

He said tablets are similar to the PC when it comes to the low end of the market, offering razor-thin margins. However, higher-end tablets, such as the Venue Secure model that come with options such as additional security software, back-end application management services and cellular data plans, can make tablets more profitable than laptops.