RonGarriques
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Dell's mobile chief Ron Garriques is out
Ron Garriques, who has been leading Dell's mobile communications group ever since its formation a year ago, is leaving the company. Ron originally joined Dell in 2007, after a high profile career at Motorola, and has overseen a rather ambitious entry for the company into the phone industry. Now Dell is folding the communications unit into its "core operating structure," and Garriques won't be along for the transition. Of course, it's not like there haven't been some missteps and head scratchers along the way (we still don't know if the Streak is a phone or a tablet or a phonelet or a tabset or whatever), and it's a little hard to tell whether Ron decided to leave willingly when he heard his unit was being absorbed, or if Dell gave him a little "push." True or not, it would be the perfect comeuppance for the man who re-dubbed the Lightning the Dell "Venue Pro." Not that we're bitter or anything.
Dell creates communications division for push into handheld market
Turns out Mini 3i is only the beginning. Dell has announced plans to create a new Communications Group with a focus on mobile phones and similar portable devices. Current consumer division head and former Motorola exec Ron Garriques will take the helm. Not much else to say at this point, but make no mistake, Dell is now officially in the phone business for the long haul.
Dell consumer products VP hints at a smartphone
At this point we're not sure why Dell won't just come out and say it's working on a smartphone, but for whatever reason the company's executives keep hinting around it. Case in point: Dell consumer division VP Ron Garriques, who told analysts yesterday that the company would "work with the top three to four" carriers "and see what their needs are." That's only slightly more concrete that what we've been hearing Michael Dell say for a while now, but apparently Ron got a little more specific: reports from the event also say he indicated that plans are being drawn up to launch products in the US, Asia, and Europe. We'd love a full transcript to figure out exactly what went down, but remember that Mr. Garriques here is the ex-head of Motorola's mobile devices unit, so he's got some experience cranking out handsets for every market. Just a note, though, Ron: if you ever pull an Adamo on us and reveal a product without specs, you are so not invited to sit at our table for lunch anymore.
WSJ: Dell "preparing a move into cellphones as early as next month"
You know who's blabbing again? That reclusive set of business people who always seem to be "familiar with the matter," that's who. This time, they've got the Wall Street Journal in a twist over renewed rumors that Dell is "preparing a move into cellphones as early as next month." Next month, is of course the big cellphone coming out party known as Mobile World Congress in Barcelona -- an event Dell has flat-out denied any intention to attend. Still, the evidence presented by the WSJ is pretty overwhelming. First, sources say that a variety of smartphone prototypes, including one with a QWERTY-less touchscreen and another with a sliding keyboard, have already been built running Android and Windows Mobile. Second, Dell's smartphone team "spent much of last year" meeting with suppliers, carriers, and Asian phone manufacturers. Dell's team includes the former head of Motorola's phone division (Ron Garriques) and another Moto employee (John Thode) who heads up Dell's netbook group. The latter being of interest since the iPhone and BlackBerry Storm are considered netbooks by their makers. Oh, and Dell still hasn't made good on its purchase of Zing and its plans to build an all encompassing media ecosystem to manage your audio and video files across PCs and mobile devices. Sources do contend that plans have not been finalized and Dell may still abandon the effort. But with Acer making the jump into Smartphones next month and other non-traditional players having great success in the space at the expense of the former cellphone powerhouses, one thing is clear: PC guys "will just walk in" and figure this out. Right Ed?
Ron Garriques is out at Motorola
We don't know whether he was pushed out or left of his own accord, but the news has just hit the wires that Ron Garriques is out as the head of Motorola's mobile devices business. It's not totally shocking to see a change of leadership, Moto's cellphone unit has definitely been through some rough times lately. Profits have fallen as the company struggles to followup the success of the RAZR and they recently announced that they were laying off 3500 employees. Whatever happens, hopefully whoever succeeds him (Ray Roman, senior vice president, global sales, and Terry Vega, senior vice president, global devices, are filling in for now) will recognize that the cellphone game is way too competitive these days to think that rolling out the RAZR in new colors is an acceptable substitute for innovation.UPDATE: He's off to Dell to head up their Global Consumer Group.
Motorola exec reveals next-gen slimphone: the SCPL
Talk about a tease: Motorola's head honcho for cellphones, Ron Garriques, revealed the existence of an upcoming handset called the SCPL (that's scalpel, in case the lack of vowels made it unclear) during a recent company investment conference -- but kept all the important details to himself. All that's known about the SCPL (which we hope no one will mistake for the surgical tool pictured here), other than the obvious fact that it will be quite slim, is that it will sport five features that promise to set it apart from the pack -- which we'll take to mean WiMax, GPS, 3CCD HD camcorder, 30GB hard drive, and probably a DirecTV dish as well. At this point, we can't even say for sure that the SCPL is not the same as the supposed RAZR 2, or "Canary," that's been fluttering around recently, but whatever they're working on, we'll have to wait until next year to get our hands on one.[Thanks, Shamste]
