Summit Notebook
Exclusive outtakes from industry leaders
Dell’s enterprise chief pooh-poohs netbooks
Netbooks: flavor of the month? Not according to Dell’s Steven Schuckenbrock.
The PC giant’s head of enterprise sales was quick to point out flaws in the stripped-down, no-frills mini-computers that have garnered rave reiews for their ultra-portability and anywhere-connectivity.
“Netbooks are a secondary device. The user experience of a netbook is just not as good. It’s slower than a conventional notebook computer,” Schuckenbrock said at the Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York.
Perhaps that’s why Dell was slow to get into a space dominated early on by aggressive Taiwanese upstarts like Asustek. Dell, the once-preminent U.S. personal computer manufacturer, which has steadily given away market share to rivals from Hewlett Packard to Lenovo, unveiled its first netbook only in September.
Schuckenbrock, however, acknowledged that the netbook was an ideal device for non-demanding consumers. “I carried one with me on the road this week to check it out. A great device. Light, easy to use. But a different performance. If I’m in my office, it’s probably not gonna work.”
Which is fine by some investors. Dell had endured criticism from the Wall Street community for appearing at times to see-saw between different and sometimes contradictory corporate strategies, from its initial tardiness in latching onto the netbook craze to its flirtation with the hand-held device market.
Stupid picture frames
Sehat Sutardja, the CEO of chipmaker Marvell, doesn’t have much respect for digital picture frames. “It comes with a dumb processor – a really, really dumb and stupid processor,” Marvell’s founder said while speaking at the Reuters Summit on Monday.
Sutardja is not dumb. He is an engineer who claims an impressive 154 patents. He is also co-founder of Marvell, which sells computer chips that make devices like the iPhone and BlackBerry “smart”.
He told Reuters that he wants to start selling similar chips to companies that that make digital picture frames. Adding features like video games, Web browsing, e-book readers and scrolling stock prices. “You already pay for the nice screen, the box, shipping, the power supply,” he said. “The difference is just the CPU that you need to put in that box.”
Electronics makers are already sampling Marvell’s “smart” chips now for picture frames and Sutardja says that they could have new products on store shevles within a year.”We don’t know when they will hit — whether it will be Christmas or Mother’s Day.”
(Picture: Reuters)
No gadgets please, we’re tech executives!
Tech managers are not just savvy about new technology but also own the coolest, most cutting edge gadgets, right? Think again, some of them have no use for gadgets at all, finding pleasure instead in century old paintings and (gasp) pen and paper.
Alain Dutheil heads the world’s second largest mobile chipmaker, ST-Ericsson, but told Reuters Technology Summit he is not a big fan of the gadgets that run on his company’s chips.
“I am not a gadget man. I prefer paintings,” Dutheil said. He is particularly fond of late 19th and early 20th century masters from his home region Provence, which he collects.
Warren East, who runs leading chip designer ARM, admits he too has little use for gadgets. “I am a pen and paper kind of man. I can’t live without my fountain pen, it goes everywhere.” He does own a BlackBerry but says it’s just a “work tool” for him.
KPN’s Stan Miller, responsible for the Dutch company’s international mobile business, has only one thing to say when asked what his favourite device is or which gadget he cannot live without: “I don’t do gadgets.”
from MediaFile:
Dial M For MySpace mobile advertising
MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe is bullish on the mobile advertising market, but says ad agencies and corporate sponsors haven't figured out to dial into it.
Speaking at the Reuters Media Summit, DeWolfe outlined MySpace's mobile efforts, such as its Blackberry application. He said the company was targeting more download applications for mobile devices. He said he saw big opportunities in the mobile-based advertising sector once there's some standardization.
We think the future of mobile is more advertising based. But the marketplace on the advertiser side has not quite caught up to the inventory out there... It's relatively undeveloped, but we think it's a market that will grow.
He said countries like Japan were ahead of the curve in mobile advertising, but that it will take the U.S. a couple of years to catch up.
We're generating revenues right now on the mobile side from advertising and will generate more next year. ... It's a function of whether the agencies and brands coming up with standardized ad units and are making investments to do that.
So far there's been enough inventory on the MySpace side, but not enough advertisers with creatives that have wanted to jump in or a critical mass of Web sites that they've wanted to reach. But we'll see more demand and its a function of educating the marketplace.
This isn’t all that suprising really – Intel are also downplaying the usability of netbooks out of fear that netbook sales will cannabalise sales of more expensive notebook computers. The fact that netbooks would serve 90% of consumers perfectly well seems to be of no consequence to the heads of marketing (who are realising a little too late that they’ve shot themselves in the foot when it comes to long term sales by jumping on the netbook bandwagon)!