Dell Moves Forward With The Copy Everyone Else Strategy
from the it's-worked-so-far dept
As was predicted earlier this week, Dell announced today its new consumer electronics strategy, which seems to be to steal the ideas everyone else is working on. The actual announcement was a little short on details, but they'll be selling TVs like Gateway and music players like Apple. They're also copying Apple by launching their own Dell music store. I've read through five different press accounts on the announcement and no one has any details, though, this one article suggests there will be copy protection involved (not a huge surprise, but just how bad the copy protection is will make a big difference). Dell's strategy, of course, is mostly copying Apple's - with the idea of creating a digital household that is all centered around the computer. Of course, while Apple goes for the more stylistic end of things, Dell will (as they always do) compete on price, by being the most ruthlessly efficient in their operations, such that they can undercut everyone else while still making their own margin. It should be interesting to see if the Dell music player and music service impact Apple's pricing on their counterparts. Steve Jobs and Michael Dell have a long history of not liking each other very much (Dell having once asked why Apple mattered any more, and Jobs having once declared Dell as Apple's "enemy"), so I'm sure Dell would take some satisfaction in cutting the bottom out of Apple's music business.
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Should be interesting to see how dell fairs in this arena. Dell has always been a 'logistics company' and never an original design/developer of equipment (sorry computer don't count) and I haven't heard much good about their hand held PDAs other than 'they are cheap' . Apple on the other hand makes there money innovating and have been pretty good at it.
Will see if Dell has the creativity and engineering talent to develop their own products instead of just finding a way to build things cheaper and faster after they've been developed by someone else.
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If by '7 days' you mean 6 days to get a new Dell PC shipped + 3 hours to unpack and set it up + 4 hours to download security updates and patches released by MS in the 6 days since your PC was built + 1/2 hour to crack the DRM + 1/2 hour to build a website detailing how to do so... then you're probably correct.
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The Envey is most sincere here...
I support several multi-floored buildings and server rooms full of Dell equipment. Compaired to comHPact, IBM, Gateway and many, many others, Dell runs a tight ship. I rarely spend longer than 3 minutes on the support menu system before I talk to someone who knows what the hell is going on... and replacment gear sometimes takes less than a day to get to me. Hell, I was even able to get my users Axims upgraded to 2003 for free. Their support web site rocks... you can build a list of gear that you own and maintain and you'll get notifications of BIOS/firmware/OS Patches/Support Software on a daily basis... and this is not the kind of stuff that microsoft update tells you about either... and hey, their (former) spokes dude support the legalization of pot. I really can't think of a better company to buy from.
So, go ahead, bash away... fact is that they're probably the single best provider of commodity PC hardware and the support for such things
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Dell is the copy king
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