March 23, 2009 by Tap
Early last month rumours began to surface of a possible entry into the smartphone market by Dell. We know that Dell hired former Motorola boss, Ron Garriques, and according to analysts the company had even gone so far as to develop prototypes running both Windows Mobile and Android. With that in mind there were high hopes for some kind of announcement at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. As we know, that was a no-show but things seemed to have gotten even worse for Dell as far as phones are concerned.
According to a Kaufman Bros. analyst, Dell's first phone attempts have been rejected by network operators for being too "Dell-like" and lacking differentation. On the one hand this doesn't really surprise me but on the other, I think that the operators are being a bit shortsighted. I personally have never considered Dell to be cutting edge or great at innovation/differentiation. I buy Dell not because I want the world's thinnest laptop. I buy their kit because it is decently spec'd and good value for money. Surely the same applies in the phone market? Isn't there an opportunity for relatively low cost 'value' phones?
The operators certainly don't seem to think so or if they do, aren't willing to risk it, and Dell has been forced to rethink it's plans. According to the analyst report, Dell is "going back to the drawing board is designing a cell phone with more differentiation," that will "likely involve vertical integration of some sort including software and/or services." I personally would have liked to have seen a low cost, preferrably unlocked, Android phone from Dell but it looks like that will never happen.
Via: mocoNews