Michael Dell has definitely
provided us with a few
token quotes before, but his latest spurts over at a Silicon Valley dinner sponsored by the Churchill Club are amongst the best. For starters, he didn't hesitate to exclaim that "a fair amount of customers" have been unhappy with the small screens and weak innards found in
netbooks, which is definitely a perplexing comment to make when you're making ends meet (at least in part) by moving
Minis. Of course, it sounds like the honest-to-goodness truth, but we digress. The money quote came when asked about
Windows 7, as he noted that if "you get the latest processor technology and you get Windows 7 and Office 2010, you will love your PC again; we actually have not been able to say that
for a long time." We're not trying to read too deeply between the lines, but that definitely sounds like a gentle jab at
Vista, does it not? Hit the read link for the full schpeel.
posted Oct 14th 2009 1:58PM
And a none-too-subtle jab it was.
I wouldn't say it's too much of a jab. Windows wouldn't be improving their OS if it weren't true, right?
You do realize that a jab isn't necessarily an undeserved criticism, right? I was remarking on the fact that it seems quite obviously a jab at Vista to me.
Michael Dell needs to take a long hard look at the poor quality Windows images he's installing on his PCs because they're the reasone why his customers may not be in love with his products.
When I compare some Dell Vostros I got for work to my HP laptop the difference is like chalk and cheese. HP did a great job of the default Vista install on my tablet (a 2730p) with 100% working drivers, no bloatware other than a few utilities and a predefined set of power options. The default install flew and I've never had any problems with it. Dell, on the other hand, install all sorts of crap including trial software, poor quality utilities that do nothing but nag the user and a default driver install that leaves a well spec'd machine running really slowly. The default ATI drivers weren't even calibrated properly so the mouse was always a few pixels off target and when you go to Dell's website they only offer NVidia drivers(???).
These problems are Dell's, not Microsoft's. The worst thing that happened to Vista was that Microsoft let Dell near it. Hopefully they won't cock Windows 7 up as well.
No one in the WinTel world is going to optimize software for hardware. Dell NEEDS to say this or their sales tank... duh.
@jakem, What?!? My HP (The HP HDX Premium Series) that cost me about $1,700 came loaded with trial software and lacking the NVIDIA drivers. I had to spend 2 hours uninstalling all their crap and getting the video card working.
Not only that, but when I had to do a re-install, the freaking re-install re-installed all the crap that came on the computer! I just ended up going out a buying a retail copy of Vista. End of HP purchases for me
@Tofu-Sama: It just seems that this quote is being misconstrued just to stir the pot. Given Michael Dell's past quotes, if he wanted to "jab" at Vista, he could say a lot worse than that.
So......Vista was a flop. Everyone knows it. Dell says it, too. Now he's "jabbing" at Microsoft.
Stupid.
good use of the world schpeel ... never knew how to spell it before =)
Coy, he was comparing HP and Dell's business machines, your HDX is a consumer model, you re comparing apple and orange. I agree with you that the Pavilion line of consumer machines are crapware whores though, but I'm willing to trade the time uninstalling the garbage with a cheaper computer.
@brandon_commando
Not after that you don't. It's "spiel" and it comes from Yiddish. The word "schpeel" doesn't exist.
My god the M$ Drones are so easily offended if one of M$ hardware partners dares to speak the truth about Vista
The fact is M$ has been too greedy for too long skimming all the profits in the wintel monopoly.
Former M$ mobile hardware partners are leading the way but desktop partners will follow and start to innovate in software
M$ drones I am sorry to say your favourite monopoly is already in terminal decline :-(
"Spiel" is German.
I can't believe there is someone else named Coy in this world besides my dad and I...
Cool!
I love my Latitude XT, it cost a pretty penny, but Dell came through with Capacitive 4 point multi touch, and an N-trig digitizer with pen.
Also, my latitude D630 took a beating and is still ticking hooked up to one of our company cable boxes monitoring TV. I've always liked Dell myself, but like IBM (lenovo) they tend to be functional more then sexy like some of the stuff HP puts out.
Thems be bitching words
exactly! and finger pointing and back peddling.
"...[customers] have been unhappy with the small screens and weak innards found in netbooks...you get the latest processor technology..."
so what is it Dell: small screens, weak inards and out-dated processors that make customers unhappy; or Vista?
Yeah, tough words coming from a guy that looks so much like sloth from the goonies.
Or maybe his head is just photoshopped on in a weird way. Either way, deserved criticism.
Here's hoping on Vista 2.0
He's actually only bitchin' at the profit margins. People used to buy massively over-specced PC's when all they wanted was the web and a bit of word processing. Netbooks came and changed all that - let alone the extra packaging design overheads involved with laptops to drive up the cost to the manufacturer. With Windows 7 he is merely hoping for the good ol' days of people needing more powerful, cheap to produce desktop boxes with a lovely shiny 'designed for Windows7 badge' to bring in the window shoppers. We will see I guess....
tool
@7egend
English is an official language of India, infact there are more English speakers in India than in America and England put together ;)
Although the fact you think one of their languages is called 'Indian' tells me all I need to know about you.
Look, I'ma let you finish, but XP was the best OS of all time. OF ALL TIME.
Dell seem to have got fat and lost their way. When it takes 4 days to get a quote for 3 racks then something is wrong.
So I'm not the only one? I ask them to add shit to my company's Premier site and it... just doesn't happen.
Did you try submitting your quote in Indian? They wouldn't have had to outsource an English to Indian Translator that way and your quote would have been done a lot faster.
Finding an English speaking citizen in a country that has over a billion people could take a couple of days.
7egend:
....
head asplode
"unhappy with the small screens and weak innards found in netbooks"
So, is Dell going to be the first to ship an overpriced 17" netbook then?
I love my mini 9. It has the perfect size. Too bad Dell stop selling them.
He just doesn't like netbooks because the he can't ??? Profit like he can with BIG PC's. I do love almost all dell products tho.
That's spiel.
A jab at vista and the lack of innovation coming out of redmond since they released Windows XP. What else was there for consumers, the office 2007 ribbon?
Maybe they where just broke?
Vista is a bad OS? Next he'll tell us it will be cold in Nome this January.
NO ONE GIVES A DAMN about Michael Dell anymore. He turned his back on the consumer as soon as he got rich. Big business and Government Contracts is all he cares about now. F*** that guy, he can say w/e he wants.
I will never recommend Dell to any of my clients, friends or family.
What did he do to ruffle your butt?
He said that many people were not happy with the small screen and low spec of netbooks. True enough. many people who don't read the spec were disappointed. A lot of netbooks have been bought online. They were expecting more power, and netbooks that had better displays. They got a netbook. Which does not mean that everybody was disappointed. Netbooks having a bigger return rate is not new information.
He said that if you had a recent PC then 7 and Office 2010 would be good. Again, true. Despite all the hype, Windows 7 does not run on a dead badger. And this is coming from a Linux user. There are good and bad points, but it is an improvement on XP in places, and a step back in others.
And as far as "turning his back on the consumer" This is how the world works. Corporations are not the local friendly computer builder. They start up, they try to sell you as much of something as possible, for as much as possible, then someone retires and hands over to a business person. In this case, Michael Dell came back. If you think he owes you anything other than the computer you paid for, tough. Corporations are not your friend.
Hold on Mr. "High and Mighty John Bailey",
I can read just fine. I know exactly what was said in the article and what he is attempting to get across. I also know "This is how the world works." Run you mouth some more, waste my time with your BS drag-ass response.
I don't care for Dell, Dell products, or their website, and all this eventually reflects back to Michael Dell.
And if you read my post again, you'll see that I never referenced the article by Engadget once. Next time you want to "Reply", save me and everyone else some time; just vote [+] or [-] on the comment and move on.
not so much a jab at Vista as it is just telling people they need to purchase new hardware and new software in order to have a great "computing" experience - plain and simple. so what does this guy do again? oh...right...
I think you're right. To me it sounds like his intent was to convey that people need to buy more stuff rahter than a jab at Vista. The last thing he wants is for people to upgrade their current hardware to 7 and buy Office2k10 because that leaves his company out of the money loop.
You may be on to something. That could be part of it. As someone who tends to be cynical myself, I'd say that was true.
Except for "we actually have not been able to say that for a long time." sounds like he's bashing the whole Windows line, even though it made him money. He's also bashing his line of netbooks, which also made him money. Weird way to capitalize by bashing your own stuff. But he could indeed be trying to use some "suggestion psychology" to get people to just buy a new W7 computer from him and chuck their old hardware and software.
#1 find an appropriate name to compete with engadget
#2 register and build the aforementioned website in a sober but classy and modern way
#3 Keep making more sense than engadget while spending 10 times less time to analyse the "data". (and also cut the Apple bias)
#4 Profit
You mean, just like PC vendors have been doing since Windows 3.0? Yes, that's right; it's always been this way with Windows. The next vaunted version with cure all ills, solve all problems, cure cancer (and maybe give you a good hummer too), unlike that last broken version. Oh yeah, and we'll sell you expensive new hardware to run it on, too! Yawn. I'll stick with my MacBook and my Linux workstation; I don't need to buy new hardware every time a new version comes out.
I'm not sure if he intends it as a jab against Vista, or Vista *and* XP, or if the jab extends back even further into history.
But hopefully he's right. I find it a shame that the dominant computing experience has left people so frustrated for so long. Whether it's chintzy hardware companies and their "value added" crapware, or the Windows experience, or poorly designed programs or malware or difficult-to-use peripherals, too many people merely tolerate their computers, rather than enjoying using them.
Too many casual users think computers are hard to use, slow, or are made to feel stupid by their computer because of the bizarrely arcane and inconsistent interfaces.
Agreed. I found it very easy to delete all my data by simply logging into the guest account. How easy was that!?
People read way too into stuff. He sells computers so he tells you that you need the latest hardware and software to be happy. No real jab at anything just the same BS a car salesman would say "Oh the 2010 model is way better, you need to buy it to be happy with your car".
I find it sad that kool-aid drinkers can't get over personal biases when it comes to freakin computers. I work on a super duper mac pro all day long at work and can honestly say I have just as much "fun" as when I work on any of my 3 PCs at my house. The Mac is not clearly superior in performance or "experience" than the PC. And while I've never seen a BSOD on my Mac, the perpetual spinning beach ball from hell is just as annoying and the end result is the same: system restart.
Super cool story, bro. I'm talking about the average user, not the type of 'leet person that accuses others of being kool-aid drinkers.
You know that kid you grew up with that just wasn't as cool as everyone else and couldn't think up things to say for themselves. Then one day they heard you say something that got a laugh out of everyone and they repeated it over and over for weeks on end in conversations were it didn't make any sense to use it. Remember that funny look you and your friends gave each other, wanting to say something to the kid but feeling sorry for them at the same time. How does it feel being that kid Spiney? If it makes you feel better you can hang out with the hundred other kids that post the same kind of so-out-of-place-it's-not-funny remarks in unrelated articles just like you. You'll spot them pretty easy in most articles, they have blue backgrounds to their posts surrounded by so light you can barley see it posts.
Greggo, you are REALLY not one to talk about kool-aid drinking. Have you seen your own post history? It's nonstop Apple bashing. And you say you use a Mac Pro that gets a spinning beach ball all the time, but you obviously don't even know how to check to see what's causing it or I assume you would have done it by now. Restarting because you have no idea what's going on is a pretty good indicator of your knowledge level.
This leads me to believe either you're a raging dumbass when it comes to Macs (likely), or you're just lying about using a Mac. And seriously, don't talk about other people's "personal biases" when all you do is bash Apple. Glass houses and all that.
Michael Dell is the biggest idiot alive. He owns one of the worst companies in america, and he doesn't deserve a single penny he has made.
That's all i have to say about that.
Vista sucks, It's cold in Nome in January. Didn't need Dell to learn this.
More memorable Michael Dell quotes:
Regarding Apple, in 1997: "What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."
Q: What is the future of Apple Computer?
Michael Dell: Silicon Graphics.
Today, Apple's market cap is almost SIX TIMES larger than Dell's. Is there any particular reason anybody listens to anything that Psychic Friends Network reject has to say? Has he ever been right? About anything?
If it weren't for the iPod (and to some extent the original iMac), he would have been right.