"Dell has never been first to market with anything," Burden noted. "They sit back and look to see when the market has sustainable volumes and squeeze ... to get prices down."

Andy Kitson, an analyst and blogger at Juniper Research Inc., said Dell might balk at the cost of designing and developing a smart phone. The , based on information gathered from unnamed sources, that Dell has already created two smart phone prototypes running the Windows Mobile and Android operating systems,

Independent wireless and telecom analyst said the rumors of Dell's entry and Acer's announced plans to join into the smart phone market . "The market is lousy compared to great times, but for smart phones, the market is still decent," he said.

Burden said that successful forays into the smartphone business against the likes of Apple Inc. with the iPhone and Research in Motion Ltd. maker of various BlackBerry devices would depend in large part on which carriers end up selling the devices in the U.S. When asked which carriers are likely to sell Dell or Acer smart phones, Burden said "who knows? Selling mobile phones is lot different than selling PCs directly as Dell has done, and the only effective way is through a mobile agreement with an operator to get good volumes of sales."

But Burden agreed with Kagan that smart phones are one of the few products expected to grow in sales in 2009, meaning manufacturers of all types of computers and handsets will try to sell them. He noted that ABI projects that smart phones will make up 17% of mobile device sales in 2009, up from 14% last year. The total number of mobile devices sold in 2009 will be 2.5% less than last year, ABI added.