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Dell to Get Into Cell Phones in 2006
prostoalex writes "BrightHand looks into the future of Dell Axim PDA line. X30 will be discontinued, X50 will get another update of Windows Mobile, and pretty soon Dell might be entering the cell phone business with PDA+phone Axim combo. The phone line will replaces the X50 model in mid-2006."
Dell level 1 tech support is what we need for cell phones.
Are you currently a live human being? Do you have ears? Is the phone placed next to your ear? Is the phone powered on? Yes, sir, I know that you are talking to me this very minute on the phone in question, but I have to ask these questions in order to escalate your call. Once again, is the phone powered on?
The biggest use of a pda is to keep track of appointments, take notes, and hold contact information - all of which my nokia 6230 can do NOW! PDAs are dying.
Although this seems like a mistake, Dell may actually be able to encourage the market on cheaper smart phones. The article, if you read, went into absolutely no detail about the phone but one can assume it is a smartphone. With competitive forces like Dell (which seems to be all dell is good at as of late) Treo and Blackberry are going to have a run for their money. I am all for more choices and better competition in this market, but to whom will they offer their services will be the next question. Will it be a brand specific deal, or will they provide to the masses and make it available to all major carriers?
-- johntracy.com, because everybody else is wrong.
What we may be seeing is the start of essentially the phone clones. Imagine the offerings from most of the large manufacturers being essentially identical, perhaps three or four models, all looking broadly the same as their competitors equivalents, differing from competitors by battery life, probably running the same firmware. You might get the basic no-frills phone, similar to a Nokia 61xx series, a slightly more advanced colour phone with a camera, a PDA phone that's literally a pen-based PDA with GSM/UMTS built-in, and an expensive slimline phone. That's the future of phones, much as every PC manufacturer produces essentially low-end and high-end PC-clones, differing from competitors by case colour, and laptops.
From a technologists standpoint, it's also depressing. Phones remain a relatively closed platform, with only limited opening up in the form of the occasional J2ME implementation, usually badly implemented and slow, or Symbian/WinCE platform, both of which are designed to be as closed as the phone manufacturer chooses. The idea of being able to get independent development environments, independent convertors and compilers (on an off-topic note: why do we now call compilers "linkers" and use the word "compiler" to refer to code converters? That's just dumb. I used to think it was only tech-illiterates that used it that way around, but it's slipped into normal usage. People: It's a "C convertor", not a "C compiler". You can't get language compilers, compilers compile - Compile (tr.v): To put together or compose from materials gathered from several sources: compile an encyclopedia - object code to produce executables) so people can create new software for their phones and make them genuinely friendly to them is unlikely, and probably going to become less likely the more phones become commodities. In some ways that's ironic, as the opposite happened to personal computing, but in personal computing people were directly buying PCs rather than trying to get them from phone service companies.
Will this essentially be the end of the diversity we see from Nokia's 9xxx series to the Treo to all manner of other technologies? I hope not, but I fear Dell wouldn't be interested if the industry wasn't going in this direction. If it happens, expect Nokia and Sony Ericsson to become also-rans, or else shadows of their former selves, to the Nokias and SEs of today what HP was to the HP of old.
I guess, whatever else, time will tell.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
A company already entrenched in a saturated market (hardware/computer retailer), branching out into an even more saturated market (cell phones)? Sounds like a winning plan there.
HP phones are good but they are VERY expensive
its a no brainer for dell as intel provides the hardware and MS the OS
its what all the support + blackberry people want as you can actually get decent applications written for them
dont cripple them dell allow any sim card to be put in and they will sell by the bucket load
bluetooth (for headphones) and wifi(for corp data) a must
I hope they come to the UK market
regards
John Jones
The new phone comes with an outsourced # key that connects you directly with their outsourced technical support. Only $4.99 per minute, press 1 for partial-English, all others please hold for the next available representative.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Great...Now I'm going to have to listen to geeks talking about how they upgraded from a cellphone to a dellphone.
All they need to do is sell them unlocked with 802.11b data and VoIP support. At first they will cost a boatload, but it will help push other manufacturers away from carrier lock in. If anyone can supply data services, I see an entire new market for WiFi to the phone.
If I could cover most of your city with WiFi, would you pay $10 a month for unlimited data at 1MB/s to your phone?
This could be what finally gets me to buy a cell phone. I've held out on phones because they don't do enough else to make me buy one (or they can do things like calendar and note-taking, but I prefer in interface of my day planner), and I've held out on PDAs because they're expensive and also aren't superior to my day planner. But if Dell markets a well-designed phone with serious computing power and a good interface, that may be the killer app that finally drags me kicking and screaming into the market. Here's hoping they can sell real multi-function phones with the quality and price that they've been providing computers at.
They must bring back that pothead to do the commercials. Dell is nothing without him.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
So far, my current P910 thinks that closing the flip means I'm done, doesn't syncronise with Outlook properly (all my mobile numbers are labelled as work), runs dog slow, can't call up numbers quickly to dial them, the keyboard doesn't suggest words, no quick way to enter a capital letter (no swipe-up movement like with Microsoft), inconsistent GUI including a complete failure to sort my applications by anything resembling alphabetically.
Sure, the PocketPC phone editions have their issues too (random bugs requiring a restart, pitiful Outlook support, poor ActiveSync which often has problems syncing an appointment for an "unspecified error") but with Microsoft snapping a the heels, hopefully the quality bar will increase.
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I switched on a business show on Fox News just deal with it, OK? They have decent business shows.) over the weekend, and the announcer, in his "what's coming up next" blurb, excitedly said, "you'll be able to watch television on your cell phone soon!" And all I can think about is how intercell handoffs still vastly suck even here in 2005 A.D, half my cell calls sound like they are from a deep sea submersible and how there's still dead zones even in metropolitan Los Angeles.
Why am I supposed to be excited about this? Where's the truly NEW stuff? Say what you will about Tivo, but that was a device that fundamentally changed the way I do things in terms of entertainment. I actually watch less TV more efficiently because of it. I want things that make my life easier, not flashy gadgets that are created simply for the gee-whiz factor.
Maybe I've seen too much. Maybe it's because I design stuff so far beyond things like this that I'm difficult to impress. I dunno... just getting old and pragmatic, perhaps.
The problem is that most cell phones aren't sold at what they're worth. They are sold at a loss, the price being subsidised by the major carriers. This is why the iPod phone between Apple and Motorola is being delayed. No one wants to subsidize it, becase the carriers are being greedy.
:(
As I see it right now, Apple could sell a GPRS phone outright with no problems. Plug in a sim card and you're good to go. The problem is, most people aren't willing to shell out $600 for a phone. $300, maybe, but not $600.
Sprint ("The first to build our own, all digital network from the ground up.") and CDMA technology is stagnating, and to make matters worse, you can't use just any CDMA phone, you have to use one they've approved.
The main reason I'm looking to move to a GPRS carrier when my contract is up. I want a bluetooth phone that will nicely sync with iSync, and for extra credit I want either a native imap client (not a java one, that's what I use now) or native ssh. My Sony-Ericson, Sprint forsaken phone is buggy as all get out. I can't even answer a phone call while in hands-free mode. The call gets garbled.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
You guys are always complaining that they don't make a phone "that should only make calls" and without any auxiliaries? This is the answer - a smartphone from _Dell_!
Apple is also getting into the phone market.
With in 4 months Apple will release a phone using custom hardware and software that will be years ahead of anything else currently on the market. It will have more features yet be simple to use because of its revolutionary one-button interface.
Within 12 months Dell will release a phone with twice as many features(only a quarter of which actually work), 104-key keypad with 24 programmable hot-keys and an AM/FM radio... for half the price.
Steve (the Dell Dude) was busted buying weed with his new Dell phone...
"Dude, you're getting a Dell... phone"
I miss Steve.
and that move is doing very well. Dell rarely makes mistakes. They do make them but they also make decisions that work very well regardless of industry outlook. Moving into branded printers was decried by many as a waste of time but that hasn't proven so.
/. favorite hardware seller were entering the market the responses would be very different.
Consider their corporate connection and this makes a lot of sense. Where I work is almost now all Dell. It saves time and money to single source many different items. Throwing phones into the mix wouldn't be too much of a stretch. They have established a level of trust with us and many other companies, that can be used to further expand their interest and protect them from being too tightly focused on one industry.
I suspect that if a certain other
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
as an owner of an HP iPaq 6315, I think this will be good for the market. The more competition there is in the market for PocketPC phones, the cheaper they'll get and the more they'll try to innovate.
I've had my iPaq since January, and it has definitely impacted my life. I surf the web, play games, and listen to MP3's on the bus, can view the PDF bus schedules if I need to, I can sync with MS money, which is really handy because I'm terrible about keeping a check register. I think if these were cheaper (I got mine used & unlocked off of the company bb for $400) and there were a little more innovation, everyone would want one.
And nobody ever uses the term "linker" to refer to either a compiler or an assembler. They use it to refer to a program that links the object code produced by the assembler to to static blocks of code that get stuck on the beginning and end of the object code to form an executable. Early computers didn't have linkers to do this; you had to put the specially-marked decks of punch-cards at the beginning and end of the object code for it to run.
You're getting a cell!