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Dell: iPad “Shiny Device” Not Designed for Enterprise

By | June 6, 2012 | 4 comments
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KremeA personal pet peeve of mine is the sales tactic that involves bashing the competition in an effort to make your own product look good. If any of you have shopped for a car you will know what I mean. Instead of heralding the features that make their product extraordinary, the focus is on insulting the other options available to you and making them appear inferior in any (every) way.

Dell is becoming famous for these class-lacking maneuvers, trumpeted loudly by their Australian managing director, Joe Kreme. According to Kreme, businesses are foolish to choose iPads.

At a media and analyst briefing in Sydney, Kreme went on to explain that, “People might be attracted to some of these shiny devices but technology departments can’t afford to support them. If you are giving a presentation and something fails on the software side it might take four days to get it up and running again. I don’t think this race has been run yet.”

Four days? His remarks do little more than make him look foolish (and more than a little bitter with the utter failure and eventual demise of the Dell Streak tablets along with their netbook lineup). Not only has the race started, unless Microsoft pulls a rabbit out of their hat it seems that the race for corporate mobile device market share is nearly over.

Much to the surprise of many analysts who made predictions early in the tablet game, businesses are eagerly (and happily) adopting iOS-based devices; and if reports (that seem to be well hidden from Dell executives) are to be believed, support and management costs are actually decreasing as a result.

So Mr. Kreme are you trying to tell us that the new Dell mantra is: “If you can’t beat ‘em, bash ‘em?”.

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About Jillian: A professional. A geek. Writer. Music fanatic. Creative. Thoughtful. Programmer. Educated. Outgoing. Thrill seeker. Realistic. Optimist. Clever. Sarcastic. Not typical. Contact me on Twitter: @codeGoddess

  • nd1090

    The market for  corporate mobile device market share is nearly over?

    There were around 400million iOS devices sold total since the iPhone was shipped in 2007 – most of those going to consumers. Microsoft sold 600 million Windows 7 licenses since 2009 – mostly to corporations. Anyone that thinks that corporations are going to throw out all the investment in Windows software anytime soon is out of their mind or reads too many tech blogs. 

    The corporate mobile device market is in it’s infancy – and counting Windows out of it is about as foolish as calling the iPhone an expensive toy.

    • http://twitter.com/codeGoddess Jillian Halayka

      Microsoft has nearly counted themselves out by delaying the launch of Windows 8 again (and again, and again)… but I agree, they have potential if they can ever get it to market.

      • nd1090

        History and numerical analysis makes this argument moot. Apple sold less than 60 million iPads since 2010. Microsoft sold 600 million Windows 7 machines since 2009. Apple is just starting the penetrate the corporate world – most of these machines went to consumers. Microsoft sold most of it’s licenses to the corporate world. 

        This is way too early in the game to assume that the world will abandon it’s investment in Windows software for Apple – and history has shown it to be true in the past.

        Apple had the command line Apple II, Microsoft was the big winner in the command-line world with Dos. Apple came with the Mac that could not run any Apple II software. They were the first to the market and had close to 100% of the GUI market to themselves while Microsoft slowly built Windows on top of Dos – maintaining backward compatibility to run Dos applications. While Apple had all the GUI market – Dos machines still outsold Macs exponentially. Microsoft kept at it – and we all know how the Windows vs. Mac sales scenario played out.

        Fast forward 30 years – and we have the same thing happening exactly the same  - Apple goes first to the market, abandoning it’s user-base (Mac software). Microsoft is slow to react – but when they arrive to the market – they do it with full backward compatibility – as Windows 8 will run all Windows 7 software. 

        Microsoft users took years to move from XP to Windows 7 – anyone that thinks they will abandon all the Windows software to jump on the iPad bandwagon just does not understand the basics of IT departments. Apple has a chance to get into a niche part of the IT corporate world with the iPad – as they ruled graphic shops with the Mac – but if a big corporation has to replace thousands of machines with touch machine and the options are – go with an iPad and rebuild the software infrastructure – or go with a Windows 8 machine, get touch, lots of manufacturers – many of them not selling hardware at a premium like Apple – and retain backward compatibility leveraging the millions of dollars they already invested in Windows software… 

        Microsoft will have to absolutely screw the pooch to mess this up – and if my experience with Windows 8 is indicative – they have not done it at all –  in many ways Windows 8 makes iOS feel like the 5 years old operating system it is (I am experiencing Windows 8 touch on an iPad 2 running Splashtop streamer from my old Dell notebook – so it is easy to switch between Windows 8 and iOS – and quite frankly, the static grid of icons on iOS feels a lot like the old Handspring Treo I had many many years ago – where Metro’s live tiles are really superior).
         

  • Info

    Hey, it’s a pet peeve of mine too, sales tactic that involves bashing the competition. Guess what, Jillian, Apple’s commercials Mac vs PC is the exact same thing! What a lousy sentence to start off your article, it made you sound as foolish as Dell.