Summit Notebook

Dell: stay tuned for “Streak”

It’s hard to tell how much anticipation there is out there for Dell’s upcoming “Streak” micro-tablet. The No. 3 PC maker’s latest foray into a consumer arena that Apple’s iPad has essentially helped create is set to hit stores this summer in the United States.

Consumer business unit chief Steve Felice told the Reuters Global Technology Summit that Dell isn’t interested in becoming the No. 1 player in the smartphone and tablet mobile devices categories, where Apple and Google are waging a very high-profile war. But the former leader in personal computers fully intends to be a “top-tier player”.

“We look at this whole thing as an experience between the computer and the remote device. We still view these as complementary devices,” he said.

Like a bunch of other tablet computers in the pipeline — courtesy of everyone from Hewlett Packard to Acer – Dell’s is getting a fair share of Web attention, but this one is a little different though. At just 5-inches, the gizmo isn’t quite a smartphone, yet can’t quite call itself a tablet a la Apple’s 11-inch product.

It remains to be seen where consumers will actually want a smartphone-tablet size-hybrid. Much of that may depend on price of course, but Felice isn’t talking — yet.

(Photo courtesy of tech blog Engadget)

from MediaFile:

“The Cloud” overhyped? Brocade says not there for business yet

Say it's not so -- 'the cloud' isn't ready for prime time? That's the view from networking company Brocade, whose marketing chief compared the hype to the rush years ago to call center outsourcing.

All those applications and data that live off your computer somewhere in the Internet make up the cloud, from Google word processing software to your home pictures and video, and it is hot, hot, hot. But Brocade chief marketing officer John McHugh told the Reuters Global Technology Summit in San Francisco that big business was not ready to embrace it for sensitive data and the most important applications.

"There's lots of issues. They're being skirted over because they are really tough and there are no obvious solutions for them today," he said. It will take "years" before big companies do that with important data, he said.

The cloud company he envisions will have no hard assets, essentially being an all-Internet endeavor. "This technology really isn't done yet," he said.

The consumer side is moving more quickly. An avid iPhone user, he raved about the impact of mobile devices, to the point where they are threatening to make PCs obsolete.

"My home PC -- I could very easily retire that in another year or two," he told the Summit. McHugh's PC still gets pulled out for complex design work, but for keeping contacts, writing notes, finding directions, even banking, it's all gone mobile. "Did anyone really see that coming?" he asked.