Dell Plans To Move Further Into Consumer Electronics

from the ah,-this-again... dept

It appears that Dell is the next computer maker swayed by Apple's success in transforming from a computer maker into a consumer electronics maker. While Sony has always been in both camps, and companies like Gateway have tried and failed to become CE companies, Dell apparently thinks it can successfully make the switch, and will lay out the details later this week. Of course, the thing that Dell has going for it, which Gateway did not, was that Dell is under no illusion about what its advantage is. Dell is a logistics company. They're entirely focused on making the process as cheap as possible, so the products are cheaper than anyone else can sell them for. That makes them quite different than Apple, who has always gone with a premium strategy of offering a product you have to have, even if it's more expensive. Still, as Dell moves further into consumer electronics, they'll find that the competition is a lot stronger than it is in computers (though, probably not unlike the competition in computers in the early days of Dell). Now, we have to wonder if Dell will start putting spyware in their TVs as well.