Dell: No smartphone from us any time soon
Summary: Dell has ruled out returning to the smartphone market -- a market that it failed to compete in -- and claims that the PC is far from dead.
Dell has bopped on the head any rumors that it may return to the smartphone market in the near future, but remained optimistic on the future of the PC, despite a global manufacturer slowdown.
Dell president of global operations Jeff Clarke told attendees at the Dell World conference in Austin, Texas, that the company still has "long term prospects" for the PC business, and remains "optimistic."
Read this
Dell throws in the towel on smartphones in U.S.
Dell exits the U.S. smartphone market in an attempt to start over. It's a temporary setback for a key entry point into the enterprise.
"I look at the middle class as it grows over the next 20 years from 1.8 billion people to 4.9 billion people and the opportunity for PCs there," he said, according to one report. With a combination of the cloud and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trends that continue to tick over in the enterprise space, Dell sees this as an opportunity to help bridge the gap between the blurring of personal and professional devices.
The PC maker has taken an 11 percent drop in revenue year-over-year with the firm's desktop PC sales taken the greatest knock. Looking ahead to a bleak outlook, the firm's market share is not going to rapidly jump any time soon. Dell's worldwide shipments has fallen by close to 10 percent, while the PC maker's market share has fallen by 14 percent according to research firm IDC.
That said, this year Dell took another crack at the tablet-building whip to fall in line with the release of Windows 8, and is developing new technologies for both voice and touch technologies in a bid to wean users away from the traditional input methods to post-PC alternatives.
But where PC makers and manufacturers have branched out to the post-PC market with the development of tablets and smartphones, Clarke said in spite of this shift to the mobile space, the firm will not develop its own smartphone.
Dell pulled out of the smartphone business earlier this year after it said it would eventually start over. Dell's Aero smartphone was a "...a huge disappointment," according to CNET, while Dell's Venue line-up "...falls short of the competition," the firm's Streak tablet didn't exactly receive rave reviews.
"We've been really clear about smartphones -- we're not going to do smartphones," Clarke told ComputerWorldUK. "We're not going to be in the smartphone hardware business. We're going to provide smartphone solutions, we're going to be the preferred BYOD provider of solutions in the marketplace," he added.
Instead, Dell will work with what assets it has through acquisitions and in-house development and build out its own BYOD platform with partners for the company's enterprise clients.
The key to Dell's future success may be (in its eyes) the PC, but the market says differently. What is clear, however, is that Dell will continue to make "devices more secure, more manageable, more reliable and durable," through enterprise-ready solutions and business productivity services.
(via ComputerWorldUK)
Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.
Talkback
PC is still the King and is not going away anytime soon.
- The market is not saying anything different, everybody has a laptop/PC. People may be buying more mobile devices but the PC has its place, simple as that. Some bloggers who never used technology or real IT experience may say it 'Post-PC' era, but their opinion is nothing but propaganda, because no matter how hard Google or Apple tried, they couldn't get a break in the PC market and they want to make the public believe that they defeated MS was their plastic/aluminium toys and PC is dead. These mobile devices are just toys.
They may be toys, but
Dell, the person, is foolish to ignore a market that will be 5G units (smartphones) within 5 years.
Groundhog day
The Dell Streak 5
The Streak 5 was first demoed in 2009 and released in mid 2010. It was arguably the highest spec'd smartphone at the time. Nothing else came close especially with screen size.
The Streak 5 did not take off in the US because Dell dropped the ball. For one, it shipped the device with Android 1.6 when other devices were shipping with later versions of Android that were much better. In fact, the Streak 5 didn't get Froyo until about 8 months later. Had it shipped with Froyo out the box, the Streak 5 would have been selling like hot cakes and we'd have the 2nd Gen by now.
I wonder how the engineers feel seeing the Samsung Galaxy Note II being praised left and right and selling in the millions of unit. I blame this squarely on the return of Michael Dell. He's always been a CEO without vision and solely focused on the bottom line.
Oh darn, you beat me to it...
People made fun of us and our Streaks but look now, the Note followed shortly after and now the NoteII backed by celebs & all carriers says a lot. All I say is "Welcome to the 5in Mobile Device Family" Not to mention the Streak 7, t-mobile's version but it was a 7in Tablet. Although the 2nd officical 7" tablet behind Samsung, The 7" Streak was short lived like its 5" brother.
It's amazing how what was considered a "big a$s" smartphone, is not becoming more and more mainstream and the too small 7" tablet is going down the same path. I guess people really feed of of what apple says and it takes them to make odd good (if that makes any sense). Dumb and blind if you ask me but oh well.
PS.I still use my Dell Streak but thinking of upgrading to the NoteII. Also, the streak 7 and some other android tablets can be uses as cell devices natively with a Google Voice account via android tweaks or just install an app called GrooVe IP. Now 7", that's a "big a$s" smartphone.
Dell's Mistake Was Using Obsolete OSes