“A growing dissatisfaction among office workers with the clunky computers their employers force them to use, in contrast to the sleek Apple devices many have at home, could yet benefit incumbent suppliers like Dell, a top Dell executive said,” Georgina Prodhan and Paul Sandle report for Reuters. “As Apple’s third-generation iPad went on sale on Friday, accompanied by the now traditional scenes of fans queuing round the block , Dell’s chief commercial officer Steve Felice said the tablet market was still wide open. Dell ditched its previous attempt at cracking the global tablet market, the Streak, last year. It was based on Google’s Android operating system software.”
Prodhan and Sandle report, “Now Dell is planning a fresh assault with the advent of Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating platform, which is expected later this year… ‘We’re very encouraged by the touch capability we are seeing in the beta versions of Windows 8,’ Felice told Reuters in an interview in London, adding that Dell may also make Android tablets again. ‘We have a roadmap for tablets that we haven’t announced yet. You’ll see some announcements – for the back half of the year,’ he said. ‘We don’t think that this market is closed off in any way… On the commercial side there are a lot of concerns about security, interoperability, systems and device management, and I think Dell is in the best position to meet those.'”
“Dell has also just launched a so-called ultrabook, a high-end notebook that is light and thin but still at least as powerful as a regular laptop. The XPS 13 costs about $995,” Prodhan and Sandle report. “‘The demand has been excellent since we launched this product just a week ago,’ Felice said. ‘It is a fantastic product and shows our commitment to the PC space. We like the PC space. We are extremely committed to it.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Anybody who calls a Dell XPS 13 “fantastic” would lie to his own mother for a nickel. Seriously, it’s a piece of crap and you’d have to be as stupid as a top Dell executive to waste your money on one. No one in their right mind would limit themselves to a subset of the world’s software when Apple Macs can run everything either natively or via fast, seamless virtualization.
The reason why Dell is “extremely committed” to the PC space because they do not have quality executives who understand WTF has already happened to them and their beleaguered, derivative, horrid, soul-sapping, painfully-boring, and downright shoddy company. If he believes the BS he’s spouting, Felice is batshit insane and he ought to be “extremely committed” — to a mental institution.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Wandering Joe” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Dell’s new XPS 13 ‘ultrabook’ not in same league as Apple’s vastly superior MacBook Air – March 14, 2012
Apple now worth seventeen times Dell’s market value – March 12, 2012
The Guardian: Microsoft’s Windows 8 is confusing as hell; an appalling user experience – March 5, 2012
Needham: Apple Mac growth to continue six-year run of outpacing Windows PCs – February 28, 2012
Tim Cook: Apple the only company innovating in personal computers, and have been for some time – February 24, 2012
Beleaguered Dell down in premarket trading as profit drops, revenue fall short – February 22, 2012
Apple Mac vs. Windows PC: ‘PC’ decline even worse than reported – January 16, 2012
Apple Mac, Windows PC killer – January 12, 2012
U.S. Windows PC shipments drop 6% in holiday quarter as Apple Macs surge 21% – January 11, 2012
More good news for Apple: Microsoft previews Windows 8 (with video) – June 1, 2011
As someone said earlier. “XPOS13” 🙂
Way to go, Dell. CHOICE is what matters. Dell should soon be offering tablets with Win8, Android, Symbian, WebOS, Sugar, even BlackBerry Tablet OS, and others (if they still exist). With and without keyboards.
Up to the customer to decide and choose… none of those (and iOS instead).
The more choice the better. The more Dell dilutes itself the better.
I wish MDN would stop holding back and say what they really feel…luv it!
Ha, I was going to post the same comment. I don’t understand why MDN keeps their emotions all locked up; they really need to let loose.
Didn’t he contradict what was previously said? Something about how tablets are a great departure from clumsy pc’s? And then they are very committed to the pc? Which is it pal? And you want me to buy a product from you? You can’t even figure out which way is up!
This was the twisted logic that I liked:
“A growing dissatisfaction among office workers with the clunky computers their employers force them to use… could yet benefit incumbent suppliers like Dell…”
Um – just what clunky computers are most employees forced to use? So, if they don’t like their clunky Dell at the office, why in the world will they want a clunky Dell notebook at home too?
And the fact that they made those clunky pieces of crap in the first place show that they don’t give a damn about their customers’ experience, and are only trying new things now (read: attempting to copy Apple and failing) because people are on to them and fed up with their crappy products.
They should just turn out the lights now.
So because people hate their Dell desktops that many employers choose to roll out at work, they’ll be happy to try a Dell tablet at home?
Sometimes I feel like I’m in a Twilight Zone episode. What the hell is going on around here? Did this exec really just say this with a straight face?
‘Cause after people get burned by one product from a company, they’re first reaction is, “Well, maybe the next one won’t suck as bad?” Is that Rod behind that curtain?
And I thought the Samsung Note would be the Streak 2.0, but it seems Dell will try again.
Win 8 tablets are their Alamo.
But, unlike the Alamo, they won’t be remembered.
More like their Austerlitz. 😀
No, no. It’s more like the Battle of Agincourt. With PC/Shitdroid makers are the frenchies. And Apple as the Brits of course (hello Sir Jony).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt
So. We’re supposed to wait until later this year for the AMAZING Win8/Dell tablet. Gee, I wish he’d told me that before I placed my iPad order.
Dude, hilarious post! Made my day.
Felice said, “We like the PC space.” We like it a lot! (paraphrasing a bit)
Reminds me of something… can’t quite place my finger on it…
Dell’s chief commercial officer Steve Felice said the tablet market was still wide open.
Either
1) He’s looking backwards, or
2) Apple is so far ahead that he no longer sees them
So they’re going to introduce this, maybe in time for CES 2013, just when the iPad 4 rumors are flying fast and furious?
Doomed.
3) He’s suffering from a severe case of cranio-rectal inversion… and boy, is it dark up there (not to mention the echo) 🙂
=:~)
Now that is hilarious!
Thanks
“On the commercial side there are a lot of concerns about security, interoperability, systems and device management”
Yeah…they’re only concerned with security, interoperability, systems and device management on crappy insecure Android systems or Windows. The iPad is super secure, easy to manage and works with standard networking protocols.
How the hell do Dell intend to address the security issues of concern when they don’t control the software?
They don’t intend to…but they intend to make it sounds like they do.
This Felice is a tad more of an idiot than his brother who also works for Dell. Trash in and out.
The MDN Take is unusually charitable today considering it’s Dell they’re talking about. Next thing you know they’ll be telling us Michael Dell is a swell guy.
I like the ‘Pretzel Logic’ of Dell executives, it’s taking them to the same place RIM is headed-to the head. The more money Beleaguered Dell spends trying to catch-up to Apple, the better. With the margins on the low end for Dell it can’t afford to have too many failures. Keep going the way you’re going Mikey, and you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. The smartest move Beleaguered Dell and Mikey have made so far is to ditch their losing tablet. Oh well. Soon Mikey will end up taking his own advice and sell the company and give the investors back their money!
I see the Iraqi Minister of Disinformation has found a new gig.
Round Rock Steve.
“Those that the Gods would destroy, first they make proud.”
I’m not sure anyone at Dell could even qualify anymore for pride, despite vacant hubris.
Hollow losers.
I think MDN should award “Beleaguered’s” to those companies that have done the best to drive their companies into oblivion. They should be awarded the day after the new iPhone is revealed to the public. Top nominations are, RIM, Dell, Nokia, Motorola. How about it MDN?! 🙂
I like to call it the Gravy-Train-Wreck TM. A company that has a winning product at the time & rides it all the way down with nothing more to add or improve on.
Motorolla Mobility cashed in via legal threats and forced Google to buy them out at a steep price. The rest of your list qualifies tho.
> Dell’s chief commercial officer Steve Felice said the tablet market was still wide open… We don’t think that this market is closed off in any way.
When a company executive goes out of their way to make statements like those, it means they really fear the opposite is true (but don’t want to admit it).
Two actions by Apple will make Windows 8’s release into a non-event that almost no one will care about. It will be like the release of Windows Phone 7 in 2010, when Apple hijacked all the media attention and hype with the well-timed release of the original iPad. Microsoft worked furiously on Windows Phone 7 for two years to take on iPhone (while Apple secretly worked on iPad). The original iPad made Windows Phone 7 “boring old news” even before it was released.
This time, it’s “The new iPad.” Apple’s Android tablet competition lost (in a major way) to the previous iPads. How is switching to Windows 8 going to make a tablet product any more attractive when compared to the 2012 iPad? A Windows 8 tablet is not going to be attractive compared to the $399 iPad 2.
And just to cover the “desktop” front against the Windows 8 kludge, Apple is releasing Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion this summer.
Announcement in the ‘back half of the year’…..thats great, but he’s talking 2020.
‘On the commercial side there are a lot of concerns about security, interoperability, systems and device management, and I think Dell is in the best position to meet those.’”
WTF?! This guy is unhinged.
Steve Felice is speaking a marketing jargon language. It’s known as ‘Beleaguered.’ It’s used when company executives are trying to baffle others into believing unreality. Is it working? 🙂
Cuy the guy some slack. He said that the tablet market was wide open and that may be true.
Obviously the iPad market is all sewn up, but the race for market leadership in the non-iPad tablet market is wide open.
It’s going to be hard to find a niche though. The low end tablet market is up against Kindles, which Amazon sell at a loss. The top end will be compared to the new iPad, so they would have to do something pretty amazing to compete in that space. Then the mid range tablet market will be up against iPad II. We haven’t yet seen a meaningful rival to iPad at the higher price. It’s hard to see how they might do that in the mid range.
My prediction is that this venture will be an expensive failure for Dell. The bigger problem for them is that they are not in a sufficiently strong financial position to absorb a large loss
This should be the final stake for Dell.
Dell’s Steve (not like Jobs… more like Balmer) said. ‘‘We have a roadmap for tablets that we haven’t announced yet. You’ll see some announcements – for the back half of the year.’
That gives Felice plenty of time to get his resume circulated.
If these guys actually did some true innovations after forming a decent design team, they would be instantly believable when they released a product with some revolutionary features.
Just got back from London, an overwhelmingly iEverything city.
I notice Dell didn’t quantify “excellent” demand for their desperate new laptop, nor consider when they say the OS will be “later this year” they are talking Microsoft release years which are longer than human years.
MDN … Yet another ‘Pearler’ of a comment! I now know what ‘WTF’ really means … Thank You!
WTF’s been around since the early days of the Internet. Seriously? WTF?!
WTF was in use when I was flying combat in Vietnam. The general usage was:
WTFO – What the F, Over!
What a bunch of noobs!
I can’t wait for the Win 8 tablets, I can’t wait to see how much crapware they load them up with. And then theres the joy of paying $100 a year to the latest Norton Antivirus. Ooh and I bet it will come with a bunch of really cool stickers on it.
Dell were stupid enough to rush a tablet together with Android and see it fail. And then try to do the same with Win8.
They should have looked to improve the android experience and sort out the issues with the software.
To succeed you have to put the time in to get the product right. Not jump from one OS to another hoping it will generate a blockbuster.
I’ll extend my wishes for Ballmer’s reign to this fool. For as long as it takes!