Summit Notebook
Exclusive outtakes from industry leaders
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)
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.
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)!
