Michael Dell indirectly admitted that Dell might have secret, all right, not so secret, plans to best the iPhone. Now, do we really need a DellPhone?

Reuters quoted him at the Citi Technology Conference in New York saying "I think you will see us with small screen devices," when asked about the iPhone. He then added, "You’ll see us with smaller and smaller devices that have capabilities of the devices you are referring to." Dell did not give a release timeframe only saying that it would not be “in the near-term”.

Speculation about Dell’s possible foray into phone making started when it hired Ron Garriques, the former head of Motorola Inc.’s mobile-phone unit. Why would a company more known for personal computing technology hire someone with a phone background…unless they wanted to make phones? With established phone maker Nokia diversifying its business into Internet services, and Motorola’s still-struggling phone division – does it make sense to start making mobile phones?

Dell is probably garnering to take a spot in the smartphone stakes. Smartphones are, after all, big news. The iPhone is enticing users into buying phones that can do more than just take calls. And there’s no denying that the BlackBerry, iPhone and other smartphone models are becoming the status symbols that Samsung’s clamshell phones were once upon a time.

It’s not enough to just have a beautiful phone like LG’s Chocolate or have enough functions up the wazoo to be called a mini ‘multimedia computer’ like any one of Nokia’s new N-series phones. The trick is to combine them both, design and functionality, into a sexy, accessible and affordable package. Even BlackBerries are no longer the bulky devices of yore with screens as dull as calculator’s.

What Dell can probably bring to the smartphone equation is better price points and the easy-ordering reach of their thriving online retail business. Still, it’s going to take one heck of a visibility campaign to match the zealous worship in the iPhone cult. Who knows, maybe by the time Dell has a phone ready, the iPhone will have lost its shiny popular-to-the-masses veneer.

And that will happen when Apple can’t sell its iPods.

Related:

Is the new T-Mobile myTouch an iPhone killer?

Apple plans iPhone SDK "event" in March

How much of the Motorola Android is hype?

iPod MindMaker may solve problems

Doom Resurrection arrives on the iPhone

Entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 11:07 am under News, iPhone.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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