Amid the broader market slide, Dell shares were down more than 10 percent at one point this morning after the company yesterday reported first-quarter profits. Shares were trading around $13.40.

Dell’s revenue for the first quarter was $14.9 billion, a 21 percent increase from a year ago. Mobility revenue was up 18 percent.

In a conference call with analysts, Dell CEO Michael Dell mostly side-stepped a question about Dell’s smartphone strategy and whether it has changed given HP’s plan to buy Palm and the success of Apple’s iPad.

“I think one of the most immediate opportunities we see with all of the users coming online is the tremendous build out of the data centers to feed all that data,” Dell said, according to a transcript by Seeking Alpha. “We are very focused on our data center custom solutions business and providing the infrastructure to all of the content providers and telco’s that are feeding up all that data.”  Data suggests Dell is supplying 19 of the 25 largest websites in the world.

“You are also starting to see us a bit in the device side,” he said. “We are very much working with Android and Windows Mobile 7 and we see those platforms as more attractive alternatives to other suggestions you may have offered.”

Of the tablet space, he said such devices are really good for content consumption and they’re not so much content creation devices. They appear to be devices that create a whole new usage pattern and new demand for data rather than replacing any existing device per se.

Looking ahead, the company said commercial demand continued to build in the first quarter and Dell is optimistic the trend will continue throughout the year. The second quarter and the first part of the third quarter typically experience slower demand from larger commercial customers in the United States and Europe, the company said.