Dell Gives Android the Boot, Boots Up More Windows 8 408
hugheseyau writes "Dell vice chairman Jeff Clarke made a less than shocking announcement at this year's Dell World Conference in Austin. The company is officially giving up on Android phones and tablets. ... So if Dell is giving up on Android, what comes next? The company claims it's doubling down on Windows 8, and the enterprise market."
Re:good luck with that (Score:5, Interesting)
There are no more "Enterprise" phones and tablets (Score:5, Interesting)
It's all going BYOD. As much as I hate it, its all going BYOD. Bad move, Dell.
Even RIM, which is based on the enterprise, is changing.
Interesting analogy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Last time I checked, gambling behavior as a primary hobby or profession wasn't considered respectable or responsible, it was considered borderline sociopathic.
If I were a stockholder I'd be worried. Technology these days seems to be about a combination of giving people what they want and convincing people of what they want. Android, to an extent, is giving people what they want, as Android is popular with users as well as with OEMs. Windows 8, by and large, does not appear to be popular, either in portable devices or on the desktop.
So, Dell is now moving to a system of neither giving people what they want, nor convincing people of what they want.
I don't think that Dell is in any danger of going Chapter 7. Where I work buys Dell just about exclusively, in a 30,000 desktop environment. The paltry sales Apple or other OEMs get is almost not worth mentioning. But, their extra markets, like phones, tablets, and other consumer devices will probably die.
I had actually wanted a Dell phone back in the day, but they weren't compatible with my cell provider. Otherwise they had the features I wanted. Pity that...
No help (Score:5, Interesting)
Android != Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Supporting Linux *is* supporting the enterprise market. No way Dell is backing off that.
I think they may be backing of Android partly as a response to Google announcing they are dropping Exchange integration. Though that could be a coincidence.
Re:good luck with that (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows 8 and Server 2012 are far from "enterprise" they are basically toys.
Agreed. It seems the purpose of Windows 8 is to provide a consumer-oriented environment conducive to buying content such as music, movies, books, etc like on the iPad and other tablets and smartphones. To date, the only things I've seen people doing with Windows 8 systems in commercials is playing movies, games, finger painting, Skype, "clicking, clicking, clicking," sliding and (often angry) dancing. No one's using the thing for any actual work...
They have their place (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally I'm typing this on a several-year-old Lenovo Ideapad S10-2, my wife uses a Thinkpad X301, and Dad bought an Ideapad G550 based on our recommendations, so I like old-IBM/Lenovo fairly well, but I don't think that Dell is quite as bad overall as you've dealt with. I'm using an old Latitude D520 at work in the field without problems, and my Optiplex 780 workstation has handled its duties without problems.
Not yet. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Market changing? Not competing successfully? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hey, at least they're not going the way of SCO, Nokia, Ericsson, and dare I say it, Apple by just suing people left and right as they slowly cease to produce anything of value in their industry. They're still trying to innovate their way out of their troubles. They should be given a medal, not under normal circumstances, but when you compare to their corporate peers...
Re:There are no more "Enterprise" phones and table (Score:4, Interesting)
It's all going BYOD. As much as I hate it, its all going BYOD. Bad move, Dell.
I really doubt that, a few high-profile incidents where BYOD caused big losses and that idea will die a quick death, not that it was ever alive in many lines of business. The better question is what's the difference between a consumer and enterprise computers, except software? Nothing. My employer-issued smart phone is a regular Android phone, they've just set it up with policies like wiping itself if you enter the PIN incorrectly a few times. There's also a use agreement which says I can't let anyone else gain knowledge of the PIN or operate it - no letting your kids play on it folks - and I'm bearing the full risk of what any non-IT approved application could do to their data. It's a pretty safe bet I won't be installing any.
I'll be a cold day in hell before they go BYOD on terms that I could accept as well, doesn't even matter if we both pick the same model I'm going to have mine and theirs. But it's a pretty good chance that theirs is going to be a consumer model that I pick. I've heard much the same story with tablets, people like and want to use it but when it comes to putting business critical data on it the requirements often crash and they start looking at corporate issued tablets instead. There'll be less "You can have any color phone you want, as long as it's black" standard issue but it's always going to be trouble for one piece of hardware to have two masters.
Re:good luck with that (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:good luck with that (Score:1, Interesting)
Um... Windows Server 2012 is as "enterprise" as they come. A quick example:
Deduplication (although it is passive and not on the fly deduping like EMC.)
Checksums/CRCs to guard against corruption. This is in ReFS, not NTFS. Linux has no production-level filesystem that can do this.
Bitlocker + TPM. No other OS has hardware protection against tampering.
Dynamic LVMs. Linux's LVM is a joke.
Logging, policies, and so on which are needed for anything bigger than the guy in his basement: Linux doesn't offer this, Windows does via GPOs. This is important come audit time, and the auditors are there.
Signed executables (AppLocker): Windows has it, Linux doesn't.
Please name me a feature that Linux has that Windows doesn't that is useful on the enterprise level.
Dell's market (Score:2, Interesting)
Posting as AC because I used to work for them...
I remember being on a conference call and someone asked why Dell didn't focus more on the consumer market, in light of the success of the iPhone, etc. It was clear to me from the answer that Dell doesn't take the consumer market that seriously. They see the enterprise market as being much larger and more lucrative, much like Microsoft does. So Dell will always have a presence in the consumer market, just to say that it has some offerings, but they have no intentions of trying to make a big splash there. Basically they will do whatever Microsoft tells them to do. During my time there it was the beginnings of a big push into the enterprise services market. I don't think they have made much of a dent personally but they will continue to pursue that. Tablets and phones are just a hobby for Dell...no news here.
Re:Market changing? Not competing successfully? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:For those who didn't notice (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, their XPS 12 looks like a decent enough device. Who knows, maybe they can actually make good things that aren't really tablets (but rather convertible notebooks etc)?
Re:good luck with that (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Market changing? Not competing successfully? (Score:3, Interesting)
Great post! Its so funny watching these CMOs, CIOs, CTOs, COOs, CEOs passing around the same smoke their getting from trade rags, thinking if they can just build a walled garden like Apple they'll all be printing Benjamins like they're going out of style. Forgetting (or never appreciating in the first place) all the while that the one thing Steve got right was creating a beautiful user experience, and that his obsessive need to control every atom was the downside of his vision. These clowns want to implement the downside without ever creating a compelling upside. This is what we call a LOOSER. America has reached the smoke up its ass saturation point. How can you tell when Corporations are lying you... their lips are moving! I'll keep Win7 to run software as long as possible, but more and more of my Windows apps are becoming available as Mac versions and that Mac Mini Server is looking sweeter every day. Especially running fusion with a Linux and Win7 VM all singing all dancing. All the software I need, when I need it the way I want it. Thanks Win8, but no thanks.
Re:good luck with that (Score:4, Interesting)
The luxury sandwich uses higher quality ingredients, so while it does have a higher margin it actually costs more to produce...
Software on the other hand will typically have the fully featured version developed first, and then extra work is done to disable features and produce an artificially crippled version, thus the cheaper version actually cost more to produce.
I find such a practice despicable, to do extra work to make intentional changes that make the product less useful to paying customers!
Re:Android != Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:good luck with that (Score:5, Interesting)
We run operating systems for one reason: application delivery. Windows is where the industry specific applications are, so that is what the client machines run.
To administer the clients, it is a lot easier to do so with Windows servers.
Do i run windows servers facing the internet? Fuck no. They are well protected by hardware firewalls, mail, etc. comes through FreeBSD. But Windows has its uses.
I'm a big fan of heterogeneous networks. Use the most appropriate platform for the service you are attempting to deliver. Any mainstream OS these days can be secured "well enough" with minimal effort if you know shit from clay.