Remember Steve Jobs’s “third screen” conceptualization of a tablet? In a nutshell, the idea is that the average user goes from their first screen, a desktop or laptop, to their second screen, a smartphone. Jobs had the idea of a tablet as a third screen, and as we’ve seen from Apple’s sales, he was right on the money. As the market stands almost all the big guns are working on “three screen” product lines. Sure, some companies only have their second screen available outside the US, but clearly this is a paradigm that has been established. Computer giant Dell seems to be the one manufacturer who just doesn’t want to get on board.
Billions of dollars in sales are a heck of a motivator.
Back in the day, Dell was practically synonyms with home computing. The company also does a fairly brisk server business. When it comes to establishing a foothold in the second- or third-screen side of things though, Dell has missed the mark repeatedly. The first attempt at a second screen was the Dell Axim PDA line, a line that was successful enough, but came out as smartphones began to trend. Dell hit it big in the netbook era, and the Dell Mini 10v continues to be a favorite of those who like to make Hackintoshes. However, the era of the netbook is over and Dell shut down production in December of last year. While those decisions both made sense, Dell also killed its tablet line in December, claiming the market wasn’t what they were expecting. Considering that tablets are the current hotness, this makes as much sense as taking your vegan date to a steakhouse.
"Can't you just eat around it?"
What about phones? Back in 2010, Dell announced a slew of smartphones to much fanfare. To be honest, I don’t believe I know a single user of any of those handsets. This may have something to do with Dell also announcing that it will halt production of U.S. phones. Interestingly, the Dell rep seems to take shots at Android in the article, stating “So far Android has not proven to be a terribly attractive in the business market.” This ignores that one of their two phones was a Windows Phone 7 device.
While the article at PC Word chooses to focus on Dell’s spokesperson announcing that the company will have new smartphones and tablets (with Windows 8) in late 2012, I wonder if that’s not too late for the house that Michael built.
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