Dell To Enter PDA Market

soundsop writes "CNET News.com reports that Dell is poised to enter the PDA market. Michael Dell states that announcements for US PDA products are coming "really soon". Will I have 50 configuration options on my Dell PDA?"

Comments

Hmmmm...

[mirko]

I guess they are trying to work around the poorer and poorer PC sales.
Now, they'll have a hard-time against Sony, HP(aq), Palm and also Sharp whose Zaurus is really the kind of programmable gadget one may look for.

Will they make them themselves?

[Louis-Nap]

Does anyone know what exactly will Dell be selling? Will it be PDAs that they made themselves (ala Martha Stewart), or will they just be rebranding some other companies PDAs (like they are apparently going to with Lexmark printers)

Personally I hope they make them themselves. While I don't want to get into an argument of white-box versus brand name computers (damn, I mentioned it, here come the flames :0), the one thing Dell can always be relied on is to care about quality. They don't just stick any old crap on the shelves and sell to my mother, so hopefully they'll manufacture them themselves.

Plus like the story says, being able to customize my PDA a million billion ways (if only my iPaq could have 512MB RAM) is just plain cool

What's the motivation for Dell?

[Latent IT]

I wonder why Dell considers this a good move. It has potential - like Apple, they can offer you a handheld gizmo (ipod) with your computer... but is Dell really going to put out their own line of handhelds? Or just offer handsprings (or something) in a bundle?

If they're just going to offer handsprings, their revenue stream will be severely limited, since their main business model is to sell hardware fairly cheaply. If they put enough of a markup on the handheld hardware, people won't want to buy them (I hope) because they'll be able to purchase them elsewhere for less.

If they put out their own piece of hardware, it's a major departure from what Dell already does. It has massive potential, if it's a good piece of kit, but it will be coming into a saturated market no matter what. Right now, Dell is a value added reseller. I'm not sure they would want to try to be something else.

The only other option that I could imagine them thinking is that they will be able to 'guarantee' that whatever handheld they sell will work with whatever desktop they sell, due to software they pre-load on both.

Er... wait. Actually that's a great idea. Dell, do that. They won't get the hardware geek market, but then, they never have. They'll get the home family market, and rake in money for software that pretty much already exists. It's good sense on their part.

I wonder...

[A non moose cow]

... If Dell is doing this without the expectation of making lots of money. I think they see PDAs becoming more mainstream every year, and they are getting their feet wet now just so they don't have to play catch-up in a couple of years.

any thoughts?

speaking as an owner of dell desktops ...

[dlasley]

... and a purchaser of serveral large PO's for business in my area, i have always found Dell to be top quality, pretty Linux (at least SuSE) friendly, and offering great support options. i see no reason why their PDA offering would be any different, and i'm honestly curious to see just how Dell's track record with servers, desktops, and appliances translates to a rather specific market full of *very* picky users.

that said, i'm a skeptic, and with Palm and Clie and Zaurus out there, Dell is going to have to be damn near perfect in their first offering, otherwise it's just a foray into a fashion trend like the Web PC.

Corporate

[gadgetboy1]

Somehow I think Dell is gearing toward the corporate market rather than the personal one, making all those "I'm not getting one" comments moot. As a personal gadget addict, I agree with them - I wouldn't get one. But I build my own computers too.

Dell may be going for the bulk computer/PDA sales. Imagine companies and government agencies buying PDAs like they buy (and probably at the same time they buy) computers from Dell. Maybe they believe IT departments disburse these like they disburse computers. Imagine if Dell included better support for their PDAs in their desktop support contracts that they would for standard Palms/PocketPCs.