As the personal computer morphs from the desktop to the laptop to the hand-held, it’s natural that a company like Dell would want to get into the mobile handset game.  Under a deal disclosed by China Mobile, Dell will supply a smartphone called the “mini3i” that will support applications from China Mobile’s online applications store, Mobile Market.  This is no small potatoes…as of the end of 2008, China Mobile had more than 420 million subscribers, making it the world’s largest mobile service provider.  It has been rumored for some time that Dell (and HP) would enter the smartphone market as extensions of their core PC businesses.  Those plans were probably put on hold due to weak tech spending, but have been revived in light of increased smartphone competition from HTC, Samsung, and LG, as well as Apple, RIM, and Nokia.  The smartphone market may be the growth engine for handset manufacturers, but there are only so many slices in the pie.