Posts Tagged ‘Dell’

Dell to Face Backlash in US Over Factory Closures?

When Dell brought in Mike Cannon as its head of operations, it was pretty clear; In order to reduce expense overhead, Dell would be shutting down much of its in-house manufacturing operations and shifting production to contract manufacturing. Dell’s expense structure was bloated and needed to trim down in order to compete with HP and Acer who have utilized this practice for years.

However, there may be a large backlash forming against the company who has, over the years, focused a majority of its sales focus in the United States and other western countries.

Many of these now-closed production centers (Texas, Tennesee, North Carolina, Ireland) have caused controversy in those localities. Jobs lost have been lost (for good?) and voters are left scratching their heads on why Dell received government incentives to bring these factories in the first place.

Will this affect Dell’s ability to sell to consumers and companies in these affeted areas? More so, could this negative brand impact grow beyond across the US and Europe? Check our articles like this, from a local North Carolina TV Station (WRAL): “Dell is turning its back on the U.S. – Just say no to Dell”.

In this current economic climate, you want to make all the friends you can. There’s a chance that consumers will rally around “Made in the USA products” in response to the negative ramifications of globalism. Dell and other US companies better find a way to respond to this.

Love your Dell Adamo XPS; Just don’t LOVE your Dell Adamo XPS

CNET’s Crave Blog had an opportunity to take Dell’s new Adamo XPS notebook out for a test drive. We here at DellObserver.com shared with you teaser pictures which had been leaked teased by the company.

Turns out that the Adamo can only be opened by “rubbing” a sensor on the front of the case. I guess this takes affection for a gadget to all new heights not seen since the debut of the “RealDoll” back in the early 2000′s?

Dell Will Repay Incentives to Local NC Municipalities

North Carolina’s News & Observer is reporting today that Dell has agreed to pay back $26.5M to local city and country authorities. Dell had originally received almost $300M from city, county and state programs to build its now closed plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Dell Mobile Internet Device aka ‘Streak’ Leaked

There have been rumors a plenty that Dell was developing a MID (Mobile Internet Device) featuring Google’s Android operating system for mobile phones. Today, image sufaced of a prototype device known as the ‘Streak’. Some key features:

• Google Android 2.0 OS
• 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity
• 5? WVGA multitouch capacitive display
• 5 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash
• Bluetooth
• MicroSD
• 1300 mAh battery

For more details, a video and many pictures, check out this from our friends at Slashgear.

Dell Featured in Business Week; Questions About Long-Term Success

Dell is featured in this week’s Business Week magazine . Don’t want to bore you with too many details when you can read the full article yourself.

Although it a bit of a ‘puff piece’ (PR teams – good work!), Dell gets its message out there that Michael Dell has been in control for a couple years now and while difficult, he has done a lot to reconfigure the company into what is now Dell 2.0 (or is it Dell Version 2.1 with service pack 3?). 

What to look for in the article:

• New Management & Customer Alignment: 
  What’s said: Dell hired a number of new Senior Execs with deep experience and organized the company into Global groups organized by the type of customer.
  What was left out:  In the process, the company has slashed headcount and morale is very low. And by the way, the company has always been organized around type of customer (SMB, Consumer, etc…), its just now that the company has big global groups coordinating across these customer types rather than letting each region team manage this.
• Product:
  What’s said: Hired in designers from Nike and spending more than he used to on product design. The new Lattitude Z and Dell Adamo show that Dell can definately make a sexy system rivaling Apple and others.
  What’s Left Out: Yes, sexy products are good for PR and competing with Apple. Thing is that Dell has always focused too much on US and Europe and not the emerging market countries where all the growth is happening. In order to succeed, Dell (and any other computer manufacturer for that matter) needs to develop better low-cost, high feature products to compete China and the emerging markets.
• Enevitable Industry Consolidation
  The article did a great job in the wrap up to talk about hurdles for the company. Publicly traded, cash rich and no growth = Dell is a major acquisition target. The PC Industry already has too many players and is ripe for consolidation. Will Dell be the aquirer of a company like Acer and vault to #1 in world-wide shipments? Will someone with deep pockets acquire Dell and kick Michael to the curb? Or worst of all, will Dell not find a dance partner and find its share and influence slip as other companies merge?

Dell Selling Windows 7 Systems Ahead of Launch

Although Microsoft’s world-wide launch of Windows 7 is this Thursday (October, 22nd), Dell is now offering Notebooks and Desktops with Windows 7 on its website.

Consumers will be able to walk into retailers on Thursday and walk out with either software packages of the new operating system or with computer systems with the OS pre-installed. Dell is able to ‘pre-sell’ the software today as it still needs to build and ship the systems. Its unlikely that any systems will arrive before the launch date.