“Dell has stopped selling smartphones in the U.S. as it tweaks its mobile strategy to focus more on emerging markets and higher-margin products,” Agam Shah reports for IDG News Service.
“Dell has nixed its last standing Venue and Venue Pro smartphones and no replacements have been announced. The smartphones had run their course, a Dell spokesman said,” Shah reports. “‘Mobility products have shorter lifecycles than laptops and desktops,’ he said. Dell will introduce more mobile products in the U.S. later this year, but the spokesman didn’t say if smartphones will be among them.”
Shah reports, “Ending the Venue sales means Dell has discontinued all its U.S. smartphone brands, after entering the market in August 2010 with the Aero smartphone and Streak 5 combined tablet/smartphone. Its Venue smartphones were offered with Google’s Android and Microsoft Windows Phone 7 operating systems. Dell discontinued the Streak 5 around a year later, and stopped selling Streak 7 late last year.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Without new life, there is no cycle, only death. iPhone, killer. SIDAGTMBTTS.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward Weber” for the heads up.]
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Dell had a smartphone?? And are those sales to end users or to channel stuffers? How bout it Mikey?
Sales were ‘discontinued’ alright, but I don’t know that Dell had much to do with that.
Wouldn’t it be more correct to say that ‘purchases’ were discontinued by Dell customers?
1
Best post of the day! Thanks for the reality check.
“Dell had a smartphone??”
Seriously. When? Where? What? I dimly remember some tall tales about introducing something, sometime back, somewhere, but, were there actually Dell-branded smartphones out there at any real time?
Wow. I’d have thought there were enough Apple haters to at least keep them shipping product.
I love the “well we’re not selling them in the US, but they’re doing great in Indonesia” excuse I hear every so often in my line of work.
Americans seriously need to wake up to developing nations. Although the US has only 4.47% of the population they have a large control over industry and money. this doesn’t mean it will continue as the rest of the world catches up in GDP.
last I looked Indonesia is the next most populous country in the world after the US. A cell phone sale does not discriminate. The newest and greatest may be sold in the US or Japan first, but in terms of unit counts the 4.47% of the population of the US is a pittance in the total numbers sold.
Splat??
Sounds about right. The problem is that in many third world countries, there is only a small percent of the population that can afford a good smart phone. If you live in a rusted sheet metal hut, its unlikely you will have a Verizon data plan!! 🙂
And while there is more money in third world countries, very true, how many phones does a rich person buy?
Just a thought.
en
Sure, there’s huge markets in developing nations. That wasn’t my point. It’s an embarrassment (in my opinion) to not be able to sell products in your own backyard.
Please excuse me while I quietly snigger… >8^)
Watch it! Better change that to ‘snicker’.
I’m totally shocked! How could this be possible when they were consulting with Rob Enderle. Obviously, they must not have taken his advice. Smirk.
+1 Well said!
Qu’est-ce que c’est SIDAGTMBTTS?
Thanks.
Dell’s problem was a failure to encrust their smartphone with enough plastic surrounding the bezel to appeal to their customer base: corporate doofuses.
I’m sure the iPhone has more going for it than “Encrusted plastic surrounding the bezel”.
1
Concentrating on higher margin products? Like what? Apple don’t seem to have a problem with margins on their products. Shoddy.
Who would buy a phone from Dell anyways?
I’ve noticed that there are only two types of customers these days… Apple lovers and Apple haters. You never hear someone say they got a Droid or whatever because it’s a flat out better product. It’s always a list of reasons why they didn’t get an iPhone.
a Dell spokesman said,” Shah reports. “‘Mobility products have shorter lifecycles than laptops and desktops,’????? What a hoot! That’s a laugh. That Dell spokesperson would have a booming career as a Presidential Press Secretary!
Shorter lifecycle? Only if you have a product that doesn’t sell? Dell enters the smartphone market in 2010 and exits 2012, while Apple enters in 2007 and still has lines during each new phone release and people still buying their ‘lifecycled’ last year model, as well as, a booming EBAY eco-system. Something Dell’s products never seem to enjoy.
Good points. I would add that Apple doesn’t have a bloated SKU list with 25 different models with different features. I hate outfits whose product list reads like a menu at a Chinese restaurant. “Let’s see, we have a chicken so we need a vegetable and I like hot n spicy. Anyone else?”
Apple and KISS and following Occam’s philosophy.
Give Michael Dell back to the shareholders.
The only thing more laughable that Dell using the term “Smart” on a product line is that they also named one version of it “Pro”.
Dell had smartphones?
The article link goes nowhere.
Just like Dell’s smart phones.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/252824/dell_ends_smartphone_sales_in_the_us.html
The MDN take was a good haiku poem 🙂
It’s missing a syllable.
Not unlike the Dell StreakPad.
That was supposed to be in answer to:
“opsoso
Thursday, March 29, 2012 – 10:50 am
The article link goes nowhere.”
Boo-Hoo. Nice knowing you, Michael…
They should have named their Smartphone “The Michael Dell Signature Streak Series” or “The Enderlenut Special” how about “The NEW DELL NINNY DITTY SMARTASSPHONE with SMELL-0-RAMA” They would have sold billions of them.
What, Dell actually made a smartphone? what a dumb-phone idea! there PC are crap wonder what the phone was like?
Goodbye Dell! I will not miss you 😛
Oh! The humanity!
At least DELL is smart enough to shut it down unlike RIM’s Blackberry. RIM must enjoy the pain of shrinking sales and shrinking profits.
Michael Dell was correct. What was good for Dell, in 1997, was if Apple closed it’s doors and returned all it’s money to it’s stockholders. He was visionary. And since no one listened to him, Dell will ultimately have to shut it’s doors. It’s all Apple’s fault. Steve, why did you do it? IBM PC Division, Gateway, almost HP’s PC division, now Dell, we can’t continue to bleed like this.
Only two kinds of phone, iPhone and other. Who cares that Dell has or had a phone? I’m waiting for the iPhone nano, based on the iPod nano, the Dick Tracy wrist radio realized. Affordable to every family in the world.
IP telephony is the future in the third world. They will never build out wire, nor cellular systems that emulate wire. Just as they will develop with distributed power generation and highly efficient transportation. The four billion people that live on $2 a day or less are already becoming connected. How much longer do you think they will permit the first world to look upon them as unfortunate, perhaps unworthy oddities? They will live on a par with us, as far as the important things go (education, health care, shelter, life) but we’ll probably all figure out the silliness and irrelevance of the 12 MPG SUV in the grand scheme of things.
“Mobility products have shorter lifecycles than laptops and desktops,’ he said. Dell will introduce more mobile products”
I guess no one told Dell that the iPhone 3GS has been on the market for 2 years.. Silly Dell =P
Dell had a smartphone?WTF?! I never heard of it. Maybe it was not even relevant…0h well!