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Dell's Smartphone Rejected — Too Dull
MBCook writes "AppleInsider has an article discussing Dell's attempt to enter the smartphone market, as well as the news that the phone was rejected by carriers as too dull. The article doesn't pull punches: 'Dell's failure to successfully step from the commodity PC business into the mobile handset market should come as no surprise, as smartphones requires expertise in software platform development, consumer design savvy, and portable device engineering, all things Dell has never demonstrated any proficiency in.'"
that I knew who the author would be before I clicked the link.
don't you mean the e?
More interesting than a boring Dell phone, was a note near the end that Acer had a smrtphone out - one of them is the DX900, a Windows Mobile phone.
Sorry about the voice...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I mean, given they pay him "consulting fees" I wouldn't doubt it. But maybe a contrarian viewpoint to Enderle... just take everything that he says as the "wrong" view and you'll do well.
"Logu?" "Lugo?" "Lugu?" I don't get it.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Didn't you hear that Dell changed their name to Doll?
It's just like SciFi becoming Syfy except not quite as retarded.
You can't take the sky from me.
Bring on the G2 (or whatever it will be called for Sprint and Verizon) in April. I'm also curious how Nokia will respond now that they own Qt, and they've got working fully functional KDE 4 desktops on their n810 tablets.
Bring on the OLED screens that are thinner, use less battery, and have much higher resolution.
Smartphones are going to explode in the next two years. People said you didn't "need" a camera in your phone, or GPS, and they're becoming commonplace. Most people don't "need" a smartphone, but everyone will have one, and we'll find new uses for them.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Nono, he meant Dell! You didn't know it was spelled Doll? In the the UK it's Doull.
Come again.
Is there an umlaut?
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
It's shocking to see that AppleInsider doesn't pull any punches when writing about a Dell phone. I wonder what their point of view is towards the iPhone.....
Dell buys HTC.
Tell everyone exactly how you feel.
If you can't have a fashion victim feeling comfortable with your phone, then you have just found painted yourself into a crowed corner of other generic looking devices. If you are going to charge someone $200-$400 for a phone, then it better not look like it was put together without any care for appearance. If you want to make a generic phone, be ready to charge no more than $50 for it.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Screw the carriers. Just release the phone worldwide as an unlocked GSM phone.
Yës!
Uh, does anyone else find it a bit suspect that this is from a site called Apple Insider? For me that completely ruins the credibility of this story. I mean, any smartphone is miles less dull than the generic clamshells and candybars that the telcos keep pushing.
All your base are belong to Wii.
I guess I don't really understand the economics behind handsets. I've always bought my own and never through the service provider. Thanks to AT&Ts following the GSM standard, I just put my SIM chip in whatever phone I want and I'm good to go.
What is the likelyhood that some manufacturer comes out with some compelling device and sell it directly to the consumers? The consumers use it in spite of the desires of the network operators.
Have gnu, will travel.
don't you mean the e?
That's Vice President Quayle to you, son.
And designed it to be an ultra-thin portable aphrodisiac.........
Dell missed its opportunity when it unceremoniously dumped its PDA line, after having one of the best with the x50v they pulled away to focus on MP3 players that no one wanted delivering millions of what were nearly fanatical users straight into the hands of what would now be their competition.
They should be shooting for volume sales of a hot platform, like their current PC strategy is now.
Instead of trying to build a gee-whiz unique product, they should be building a phone that's cheaper than an HTC G1, runs Android and is available to a variety of networks. Dull, sure, but at a pricepoint beating the G1, it doesn't have to be a flashy offering, just usable and capture the enthusiasm of the G1 fanbase and potential market. 3G, Bluetooth, Web and Android apps.
What else would they need?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
now really... Since when is a phone capable of being dull? And if you're not dull yourself, why bother if people think your cellphone is? Seems to me some people are trying to compensate for their own lack of being interesting by needing a cellphone that isn't 'dull'. Hardly shocking news of course...
Why do people keep calling them smartphones? They aren't going to know that I'm having a stroke and phone 911 for me.
What happened to a phone being a phone? (I think I just might be showing my age there.) Why do we need all these reasons to have dead batteries so that when there is an important call-or we need to make an important, we can't.
Some people are only alive because it's against the law for me to hunt them down and kill them.
Given the phones that have not made it to the US market, and the fact that the iPhone has to bypass the carriers all together, I do not trust their judgement on how interesting a phone might be. OTOH, given that it is a Dell, and does run an MS OS, I would assume that it was just another phone, perhaps full of gee whiz features, but not worth stocking over any other mobile device.
Perhaps they should approach Cricket or Boost Mobile. I don't think either of those has a smart phone, and Dell can likely make it cheap enough, as MS probably has some motivation to get into this extremely low level market sector.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Congratulations! You just won the Dell's smartphone prize for dull people!
When will computer manufacturers learn that they don't have the expertise to design cool, sleek products like a cell phone? They should leave that to other companies like Appl...
er...
nuts, why doesn't this "Add Comment" form have a "Cancel" button?
The keys are right next to each other.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Bob Dylan
We need an alternative to to the phone companies.
Dull as in boring, or dull as in not shiny (apple people, there is a difference).
If they mean boring, then fine, I can see that as a bad thing
If they mean not shiny, then what's the problem? I specifically bought a non-shiny phone (w385) because it has rubber on 50% of the phone and neither scratches nor needs a cover that makes it 150% thicker. If only it were unlockable...
Dell seems to be trying to be Apple with their smart phones and their bizarre new aluminum netbook. Commodity equipement makes only innovate in reducing their production costs not in product development/design.
Dell is in a tight spot being squeezed by Apple at the high end and other commodity PC manufacturer at the low end.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Am completely shocked. Really. I just can't believe that APPLINSIDER would publish an article claiming Dell isn't able to make a consumer savvy, portable well-designed smartphone able to compete with other leading competitors. Man, it's like they are openly advocating for another company with an entry in that market which touts itself as the ultimate consumer savvy designer portable device manufacturer or something. That's just brutal.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Make'em Beige in color and watch droves of fools part with their cash!
It has been for several years IMO, but now it's becoming clear that they won't be able to alter the course of events. I think the fate of the company is no longer in its own hands. A sale is more likely than a bankruptcy. I can see IBM taking another shot at this market segment :) It might be worth a shot if they can get it cheap enough.
In Germany, yes: Däll
Comprehending goatse is easier than comprehending that post. Maybe viewing the goatse picture resulted brain damage for the troll poster.
n/t
Was build-to-order and fast delivery. They grew like crazy by being aggressive cost-cutters, and when they cut the costs to the point where their low quality started to get on their customers' nerves, their decline was a foregone conclusion.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The Dell Mini 9 is a fine netbook but that of course if beyond the grasp of your brain.
Ive used all kinds of laptops and its a freaking machine and even the junkiest 10pds Acer laptop can still do a decent job.
Ever since I've been forced to use Blackberry 8300, I long for a regular, dull phone. One where I don't have to put magnifying glasses on to know what the heck I am doing. One where I can easily do what I need without having to go through layers upon layers of incomprehensible menus.
If not for the fact that I have to use it, and that the company is paying the bill (that is the only good aspect of it), I would use it for target practice and go back to my old, dull, basic clamshell Motorola, where I could do everything with one hand without even looking at it.
End anonymous moderation and posting on
The way to compete with the iPhone is to offer phones for the people who dislike virtual keyboards. Instead, they have created a direct head-to-head device that offers no keyboard in the G2.
I think this is a terrible mistake. Not on the order of killing Android, more like a massive hit in opportunity cost to gain marketshare.
On the other hand I think the Pre will do pretty well in the market, which will squeeze the marketshare of the G2 even further. The Pre is really trying to specialize as things different enough from the iPhone that I think it will be a popular alternative for a lot of people.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hey all those namechanges are applied because both franchises have not yet reached the male gay public, especially the draq queens...
The voice to me, was kind of painful to listen to as it sounded OK but the inflections just kept being really weird (especially in one spot where the inflection made "two' sound like "too").
But the funny thing was, when it was reading the phone specs (GSM/dual SIM/etc.) out it actually sounded more natural than many tech reporters! I guess tech knows tech! :-)
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Poor thing can't come here anymore so he has decided it's a crap place.
Sounds like sour grapes to me.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Checked my post but not the subject, "Andoid" was not meant to be a dig though it sounds faintly mean-spirited.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I do as the grandparent poster, bringing my own phone with T-Mobile USA, but I use a pre-paid SIM that cost me about $8 to start the account and about $16/month in usage fees.
I agree, if you are a heavy user and have no intention to switch carriers or reduce usage during the contract period, a well chosen contract with a "free" phone may be cost effective. But I crunched the numbers when I was in such a situation, and found that after a year or so I was wasting money because I had signed on to the 1000 minute/month plan and using the phone gratuitously since "the minutes were already purchased".
I migrated to cheaper plans with a non-subsidized phone, and eventually to pre-paid. My lifestyle changed to adapt to the new cost structure, and I make better use of my office phone, coffee and beer meetings, and email or IM to replace many of the useless mobile phone calls. Now the mobile is just used to synchronize real life events, rather than to replace them, and I am happier all around.
It seems more likely that Dell decided there was not a lot of money to be made in pda's (they have always been a niche market)
Not true, in the golden age of the Palm they were not a niche at all. Tons of people had Palm devices, well outside of any niche...
A true PDA is for sure a niche now, because so much of the usefulness was taken away by cellphones. Dell didn't get in early enough to that party, even though you could see it coming a long way away (Palm did, they just took the wrong actions).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is there an umlaut?
Hmm . . . then it would be spelled something like "Doeuell."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I can't imagine anyone in Germany would buy a computer called "eine Delle" (a dent).
On a vaguely, unfeasibly related matter, my girlfriend (a graphic artist) returned from a customer site and stated: "Sie arbeiten mit Dosen!" (they work with cans!)
I was confused until she explained that people who do not use Apple (heresy for graphics folks) use "Win-dose", and hence, "Dosen."
Now, here you could somehow put a "Delle" in your "Dose," but I really don't know why.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
You can still buy them 2nd hand, and mine still works. Does the job, no BS, no gadgets, just works.
BTW, I also have a Neoi 809 Swiss Air edition (neoi.de) and that is so small it takes too long to find it when it rings - and that *really* has small buttons - but it's very good for running as it has no weight and comes with 2 batteries.
Personally, the most useful phone I have is the Sony Ericsson P1i, although the soft buttons means the "end call" button can vanish in a pile of menus. The company iPhone is IMHO crap in comparison, with the exception of 2 points: it's VERY easy add a 3rd party to a call, and the TapForms app you can buy is IMHO the best personal DB app since the Psion Organiser II "files" option (that is, after I rewrote some of the editing and search functions :-).
In the long list of phones I had, I think the NEC P3 was about the nicest. In the times when everyone was walking around with Motorola bricks "I'M ON THE PHONE! YES, LOOK AT ME" I had the thing discretely inside my jacket. It's so much cooler when you don't have to show off but still have the benefit.. :-)
Insert
Yet they have better service than the United States.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Come on. No photos of the thing? What the hell did I click on the article for, WORDS ?
The real problem is that Dell even needs to go to the carriers and that the US mobile phone market is so fragmented. Most phones are carrier locked, many carries don't use SIM cards, and the ones that do and that allow unlocked phones (T-Mobile and AT&T) still use weird frequencies.
There are at least two GSM carries in the US, T-Mobile and AT&T. Dell should produce low-cost, high quality unlocked phones for these carriers, and maybe even a dual GSM/CDMA phone that could be used with most carriers; maybe that would finally kick-start the US mobile phone market.
Dell might be able to do what Apple had promised but has completely failed to achieve: remove the stranglehold of carriers on the mobile phone market.
Jobs practically had to ram the iPhone up ATT's ass before they would allow it on their network. Funny how profitable it turned out to be for them.
That's total bullshit. Apple could have released an unlocked GSM iPhone and it would have worked on both T-Mobile and AT&T in the US, and most carriers world-wide. The fact that the iPhone is carrier-locked is solely Apple's responsibility, and they have gone to court in order to try to keep it that way.
and the fact that the iPhone has to bypass the carriers all together
Apple is selling the most strongly carrier-locked phone ever, and that is Apple's choice. They could have offered the iPhone unlocked. Instead, Apple went out of their way of setting up exclusive contracts with carriers in every country they offer the iPhone in.
What Apple managed to do is to divert some of the revenue stream from carriers to themselves, by offering for-pay add-on services with the phone, but that is hardly a win for consumers.
This "bypassing the carrier" meme is Apple marketing fiction; in reality, Apple has done enormous harm to the US phone market by perpetuating a model built on carrier-specific phones and carrier lock-in.
I just wrote a blog post about this here : http://techdisruption.wordpress.com/
Wow... Some apple blogger dissing dell stuff makes news now? I don't like my cellphone much either. If i write a blog on an apple site about it can I make front page?
Given the track history of the carriers providing services for me about what I expect from a mobile phone, i am not sure this is a bad thing.
a) not so expensive to nail me to a super-expensive contract
b) standby battery life
c) speech quality
d) standard system where a lot of applications run on
only after that features like "not beeing dull" come to my mind. I am perfectly happy with my "dull" Nokia E61, as i was before with my "dull" Nokia 6310 and Nokia 6310i. Would Dell bring a cheap dull phone fulfilling conditions a-d, they could make me switch.
Here is another example of western mobile carriers stifling innovation. It does not matter if the Dell platform was boring or not. It's up to the market to decide, NOT the carriers. It's time for the carriers to be required (as a Public Utility) to open their access rules. Locked devices and exclusive contracts are creating artificially high prices for wireless and blocking device manufacturers from entering the market on a level playing field. They have no problem operating in other countries that do not allow these practices but decry the fate of their industry when lawmakers suggest they open up here. I say Bull Shit! Let them compete by offering better coverage and services and not on who has the coolest gadget maker locked into an exclusive contract. US falls way behind other countries in wireless quality and diversity.