Our own Alex Williams attended Dell World 2011, which focused on several things including Dell’s tablet strategy, Windows 8, the developer ecosystem that powers Dell’s technology and virtualization, to name a few.

On the mobile side of things, it seems Dell is no longer interested in using Android to power its upcoming enterprise tablets, and is instead gradually shifting its focus to Windows 8.

Williams talked with CEO Michael Dell at the conference held this week in Austin, Texas:

“I caught up with Dell after his keynote this morning and asked about Windows 8 and its fit with the company.  He said Apple’s master is the consumer, not the IT manager, which creates an opening for Windows 8 tablets…it was clear his thoughts were on Windows 8 and the capabilities it has. It’s an easy fit in the enterprise.”

This adds up with the keynote  Microsoft head Steve Ballmer held last week.  He demonstrated some of the new capabilities Windows 8 will feature, as well as the Lync UC offering. The latter will ship with Skype integration (though no further details about precisely how were revealed), a built-in translator, and more.

The OS itself comes with a Metro-style UI that’s optimized for both keyboard and touchscreens, and overall resembles the Windows Phone interface.

One of the other major highlights of the event was Dell’s developer ecosystem, which the company is looking to grow with the help of RedMonk, a firm that specializes in this area. Dell elaborated a bit about its plans during the gathering, including the internal learning curve and the rest of the process.

VMware chief executive Paul Maritz laid out some of the reasons growing and supporting such an ecosystem is important, in addition to discussing the role of virtualization and his company in the “next really major iteration of consumer computing and enterprise scale computing,” the cloud.

All in all, Dell World 2011 was an opportunity for Dell to send a wave of optimism for its manufacturing sector, even as HP seems to fall by the wayside.  The convergence of mobile workers and enterprise needs provides fertile ground for Dell as it reevaluates its strategy around these important sectors, looking to key partners as it builds an ecosystem accordingly.