Dell's Streak is a 5-inch tablet priced like a smartphone. In a review, Wired.com rated the device 3 out of 10 because of its poor display and short battery life. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
The iPad is doomed to fail because it doesn’t appeal to business users. That’s what Dell dreams, at least.
Dell’s global head of marketing for enterprises Andy Lark claims Dell will have an edge because it entered the tablet PC market with an enterprise approach, whereas Apple’s iPad has a consumer approach.
“Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island,” said Lark, in an interview with CIO Australia. “It’s not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex.”
What Lark seems to overlook is that the enterprise approach to mobile is one of the main reasons that Windows Mobile flopped in the wake of more consumer-centric handsets including the iPhone and Android phones. Microsoft would later admit Windows Mobile was “too computerey,” because it tried to shove too many features into a user’s face. Humbled by its downfall in mobile, Microsoft scrapped Windows Mobile to create Windows Phone 7, a mobile operating system focused on consumers.
It’s surprising that Dell hasn’t figured out why general-purpose phones tailored toward consumers have done so well: People like to use technology to work and play, and hundreds of thousands of apps on iOS and Android fulfill both professional and personal needs. On top of that, user-friendly hardware and software interfaces can make it easier to accomplish tasks with these apps.
The same seems to be true for tablets. Apple has sold 15 million iPads, and people are finding all sorts of ways to use tablets, using apps for social-networking, watching movies, reading, finance, business, medicine and many niche areas.
But Lark doesn’t seem to care about 15 million iPads selling, or any numbers for that matter.
“An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you’ll be at $1,500 or $1,600; that’s double of what you’re paying,” he claimed. “That’s not feasible.”
Never mind that anyone with basic algebra skills could quickly figure out that the cost of an iPad ($500), a keyboard ($70), and a Smart Cover case ($40) comes out to $610. It’s a mystery where the other $1,000 comes from, but at this point we can roll our eyes at Dell and move on with our lives, because Lark doesn’t even know that the iPad doesn’t work with a mouse.
See Also:
