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Dell Sets Stage To Take On Apple's iCloud
adeelarshad82 writes "Dell has quietly created a cloud-based service offering that could offer consumers a compelling reason to keep investing in Dell devices. The new release, which began shipping last week, allows users who snap a picture with a Dell Streak or other Dell mobile device to automatically upload it to a pool of free, shared cloud storage. The new software also allows devices to remotely control and play back shared audio and video, plus other services."
So the title should maybe read better and more accurately... "Dell rushed to market a delayed release of a copy of a competitors product"
You mean HP
I think the company should be sold and the money returned to it's shareholders.
Ferrand described his business as a "brand war," where Dell is aspiring to become something like an Audi of the PC world, where the quality of its fit and finish is complemented by a faith in its superior engineering.
Fit and finish are nice on an Audi, but it's still a lot to pay for a VW.
(Disclaimer: I have a 1988 VW Rabbit and I love that old thing.)
On Macs, iCloud will make sense because it's baked in. On PCs running Windows, anything Dell does will feel like bloatware. Dell is not Apple.
They can probably "set up clouds" in a few hours. You need connectivity and storage. They probably already have connectivity, and they already sell storage products.
The only thing they needed was to install a few of their off-the-shelf SANs with their off-the-shelf clustering solutions in a few of their already existing data centres.
The MOST work would probably have been to put software interfaces on their devices that talk to that storage. But that's also pretty standard stuff.
Does Dell want a crack at making another Danger Sidekick?
I can see this used as an excuse to go short on the storage on a phone. The problem is that SD cards and large amounts of flash storage won't go down if the cloud goes down, are faster than the network hardware, and are not subject to the data caps that a carrier would put in.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Remember when Dell used to have their own ideas, rather than bouncing around doing the corporate equivalent of "me too!" every 6 months? Yeah, me neither. (ObFullDisclosure: I used to work for Dell as a GTS -> Pro Support agent.)
The one thing Dell did right was to make a deal with Stardock. The Dell Dock is really nice, to the point where I wish I had it despite having paid the $20 for ObjectDock Plus. Dell has had the notoriety of bloatware, but it's come down quite a bit recently. Unless you get a really cheap laptop, you'll get your machine basically shipped with Windows, drivers, Dell Dock, Roxio burning software, PowerDVD, and a McAfee demo...and little else (possibly one or two desktop shortcuts). About the only thing I'd consider to be Dell bloatware anymore is the McAfee trial, but whether it's a good idea to bundle the first two months of virus protection instead of baking a year subscription into the cost (or loading with Avast, AVG, etc.) is a whole different topic entirely. But even in their consumer line, Dell provides mostly-untouched, pre-activated Win7 discs and driver discs in the box.
The real king of bloatware these days is HP, who will ship laptops with 40GB of used space, for a machine whose msconfig list requires a scroll bar out of the box. It takes less time to find an untouched OEM copy of Win7 that takes HP keys on $TORRENT_TRACKER, download it, burn it, and install it, then install the drivers manually, than it does to decrapify the damn things. HP doesn't ship recovery media anymore, they have recovery partitions, that require the end user to burn discs themselves (a process that can take over three hours) that slipstream all the bloatware into the disc. God help you if you actually have to use them, since THAT process can take hours as well. Their printer driver discs require half a gig, and the 'custom' install basically lets you choose whether you get a desktop icon for the registration program or not, instead of actually giving you the choice of leaving half the crap on the disc. Curiously enough, Epson and Canon can fit their drivers into 10MBytes, and even HP themselves can make a 15MB driver stack - IF your printer speaks PCL or PostScript. If not, there's the obligatory msconfig scrub for the three services and five executables that add themselves to startup for a PRINTER. ugh. The sad part is...I generally like their laptops.
The problem is that SD cards and large amounts of flash storage won't go down if the cloud goes down, are faster than the network hardware, and are not subject to the data caps that a carrier would put in.
It's only a matter of time before a Google or Apple or Dell, or even a Hulu or Netflix, make a deal to exempt their devices access to their servers from bandwidth caps, in exchange for giving the carriers a better cut of the subscriber or service revenue.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
The new release, which began shipping last week, allows users who snap a picture with a Dell Streak or other Dell mobile device to automatically upload it to a pool of free, shared cloud storage.
Wow, Dell, way to innovate.
Seriously, what's the point of this? Dell doesn't make anything that runs custom software--their PCs run Windows, like millions of others, and their phones run Android, like millions of others. So why do I need a Dell device to connect to some random cloud service? At least Apple has the excuse of tying things in at a very low level with the software that they, and only they, make. Plus, being the market leader makes things like this a little more compelling, like how you can find a million cases and accessories for iPhones and iPods but not so much for any random Android phone.
Has Dell even announced how may Streaks they've sold? Have they broken the big 1-0-0 yet? Or will they just give up on this, too, and let it go the way of the their MP3 players?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Windows Mobile had this years ago. Ability to upload pictures/contacts etc... Might not have had all the services but bandwidth wasn't available at the time. Then Ms threw everything they had for 10 years out and started again with Phone 7.
As much as i'll be slapped down for saying it Apple is behind the curve on this one. With Google / MS Cloud, even Ubuntu has its own cloud solution. Repositories designed to deal with Storage and Applications is already here. Apple gets news attention over it but really offers far less then whats already out there as it renders the YOUR data to be "stuck" in application land.
Dell on the other hand is probably doing what it always does. Offer a rebranded product under their own title. Security vendors such as Trend are getting behind the 8ball on this and offering products like SecureCloud and with certainty if your not using iCloud within a few years cloud "bolt ons" will simply be an extension of your AV.
Apple's mistake on this one is security by restriction. They are balking at what secure elements are being implemented and they are restricting data availability, if these cloud companies (not just Apple) don't offer effective Data Escrow solutions its widespread adoption is going to be tough.
LOL, whattaya know? My memory ain't so good. :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Apple's cloud product isn't as good at storage as what DropBox does for free.
Their cloud email/address/calendar sync isn't as good as what Google does for free.
Their cloud backup is pretty slick, but not so much better than what CrashPlan offers for free.
So they emphasize photo sync and music sharing. Meh, it had better be pretty good...
What hope does Dell have?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
No, Dell did it too.
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1040-963901.html
Apple's cloud product isn't even out yet, so good luck with your predictions.
I should have said that their current product isn't as good as DropBox and Google's free offering, and that their current backup product is pretty slick.
The new service seems to emphasize photo sync and music sharing, and I have no idea how well that will work.... but as I say, it had better be good.
Dell has zero track record and so I can't really lash out at them, but I'm quite skeptical that they can dazzle right off the line.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Hate to be captain obvious on this one http://www.apple.com/icloud/what-is.html.
I foresee Apple's attempt at hitting the collaborative email market about as successful as Apple attempt at hitting the games market ...
http://store.apple.com/us/search?find=games
Look Call of Duty has been released! No wait ...
Apple IOS has more games than all other game systems combined
http://www.intomobile.com/2010/11/17/apple-ios-iphone-ipa/
The camels are coming. I'm in love.
Maybe I missed something. Call of Duty is the first hit on your search link. I bought it on the Mac App Store. What does "No wait ..." mean in this context?
If you think iCloud is merely a collaborative email tool, you probably bought a Nomad instead of an iPod 10 years ago, probably sold all your Apple stock in 2004, probably complain about one-button mice on Macs, even though they stopped making them in 2005, and probably think a Chevy Malibu is a better car than a BMW 3, because it costs less. You also probably go on slashdot and post "teh shiny!" on every Apple topic.
Or maybe I misunderstood the entire point of your post, since I'm still baffled at posting a link that is supposed to prove that CoD isn't available for Mac when it clearly is?
Except you're making the assumption that people want to use cloud storage like Google or Amazon think they do. I honestly don't think so, I certainly don't, and Apple is betting they don't either, which is why they are NOT restricting people, but rather approaching this concept with a different business model. You're not storing everything in the cloud, but the cloud is a way to make sure all your devices are automatically synced with no management effort from the user. They may end up being wrong, but I think we'll find that the public will like this business model.
There's a big difference. HP actually rebranded the unit. You could get an "HP iPOD" including a U2 commemorative model. Dell simply added it to its "store" like they do with the PS3 and XBox today.
Dell's entry into this market was the ill-fated "Dell Jukebox" or (DJ) and "Dell Ditty" which were rebranded Creative Nomads and Zens. They were roundly criticized for their horrible user interface and support software; neither of which Dell created.
To Copy from One is Plagiarism; To Copy from Many is Research.
No COD 4 which is like 3 years old is available, no other versions http://store.apple.com/us/search?find=Call+of+Duty&mco=MTA4MTkyMjY
COD is the one of the worlds most popular games out there and Apple is 3 years behind, that's the point I'm making.
Oh, you mean Call of Duty Modern Warfare, but you said Call of Duty...maybe you should be more precise with your petty arguments. I play PC only games on my Mac (boot into Windows) when there's only a PC version. If there's a Mac version on Steam, I buy it there (and can play on my Mac or PC side, if I'm too lazy to take the 30 seconds to reboot).
There are legitimate reasons to be anti-Mac, but "lack of video games" or "games only work on Windows" is definitely not one of them.
And another thing, it's not Apple that's 3 years behind, it's the game developers. Other companies have realized that almost 100 million installed machines is a very lucrative market, especially when your competitors are too lazy to make a version for the platform. And the Mac market is growing insanely, especially in the target video-game playing demographic.