Beleaguered Dell today announced that it will close its 140 kiosks in the United States.
MacDailyNews Take: It’ll be a joy to walk through the malls on our way to the Apple Stores without having to negotiate around Dell’s empty aisle-hogging eyesores.
The Dell Direct Store model, which began in 2002, enabled customers to touch and try Dell products before purchasing systems direct from the company. Why anyone bought after that experience is beyond us. Maybe they didn’t; hence, the suddenly kiosk-less U.S.
“Moving into retail is a prime example of Dell listening to its customers,” said Tony Weiss, vice president for Dell’s Global Consumer business, in the press release. “Ever since we began our journey into retail, we wanted to give customers the opportunity to call, click, or visit Dell and have access to our award-winning products. This move fits in with how our broad global retail strategy is evolving.”
Dell Inc. likes to say that they “listen to customers and deliver innovative technology and services they trust and value,” yet we can find no proof of these things anywhere. Dell assembles boxes that are OS-limited, rely on third-party operating systems that often add their own frustrating issues, and Dell’s PCs are a waste of money compared to Apple’s OS-unlimited Macs. If dime-a-dozen Dell closed up their entire shop today, nobody outside of their employ would care.
MacDailyNews Take: Well, Mikey, you’ve shut the kiosks down, but are you going to give the money you’ve saved back to the shareholders?
