“Cut price tin marketer Dell has started to flog what it is calling a luxury range of PCs aimed at high end businesses,” Nick Farrell writes for The Inquirer.
“The new XPS brand will start at $2,700 for the laptop and $1,100 for entry-priced units… Dell spinners said that the real feeling of luxury will come from its customer service. Buyers of the XPS laptops will be connected with a customer service representative within five minutes. That is about half the time that regular Dell customers wait. Only with Dell is reasonable customer service considered a luxury.”
Farrell writes, “The rest of the cash seems to have gone into the look of the hardware. For example the cover of the laptop is made of a magnesium alloy that gives the product a brushed gunmetal look.”
Full article here.
“‘Looking at their consumer strategy, they don’t have the brand name that Apple and Sony (SNE) have,’ said Shaw Wu, of American Technology Research,” Rex Crum reports for Dow Jones News. “Wu points to last week’s release of Dell’s new DJ Ditty music player as an example of the challenges the company is up against in the consumer market. The $99 device can hold 220 songs and is being marketed as an alternative to Apple’s iPod Shuffle. But Apple’s dominant market position and ubiquitous iPod marketing campaign will force Dell to play catch-up. ‘They released it without much fanfare,’ said Wu, who rates Dell shares a ‘buy.’ ‘They’re trying to hit the iPod Shuffle, but Apple is already so strong there.'”
Crum reports, “Another of Dell’s strengths is its direct-sales model, which lowers manufacturing costs and allows the company to build machines that cost less than similar ones made by its competitors. But high-end customers, who tend to be more technology-savvy, are less focused on price and more concerned about what their gear can do, said Mark Stahlman, an analyst with Caris & Co.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Besides looking like prop rejects from the original Battlestar Galactica TV series (1978), these things also do not come with a ‘luxury’ operating system: Dell XPS PCs ship with Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition. Of note: the big one (middle of top picture) called the “XPS 600” offers a “customizable backlit shield with seven color choices.”
