Dell has confirmed it will announce new tablets in the “back half of the year” based on Microsoft’s new Windows 8 OS.

In an interview with Reuters, Dell's chief commercial officer Steve Felice said the firm would likely differentiate its tablets from Apple's ubiquitous iPad by targeting enterprise customers.

"We have a roadmap for tablets that we haven't announced yet. You'll see some announcements [in] the back half of the year," he said. "We don't think that this market is closed off in any way."

Dell previously entered the tablets market with the Streak, based on Android – but Windows 8 is now the focus. "We're very encouraged by the touch capability we are seeing in the beta versions of Windows 8," Felice told Reuters, though he didn’t rule out Dell making Android tablets again.

The PC giant joins other firms such as Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and (possibly) Nokia which are also planning Windows 8 tablets when the new Microsoft OS becomes available later this year.

But Felice believes Dell will have a key advantage over many of its rivals (including Apple) due to its existing relationships with its thousands of business customers.

"On the commercial side there are a lot of concerns about security, interoperability, systems and device management, and I think Dell is in the best position to meet those," Felice said. "We come at the market in a different way.. We are predominantly a company that has a great eye on the commercial customer who also wants to be a consumer."