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Dell's Andy Lark bashes the iPad, points out far-fetched figures instead of actual flaws
In business, there's a right way to take on a rival, and apparently, the Dell way. If you're up for taking a lesson in the latter, look no further than the CIO article down in our source link. There, Dell's global head of marketing for large enterprises and public organizations, Andy Lark, attempted to prove why the iPad didn't stand a chance in the enterprise market -- a market where two-thirds of the Fortune 100 are already adopting or piloting the device. The interview meanders on in a few different directions, but the highlight of the whole thing is right here: "An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you'll be at $1500 or $1600; that's double of what you're paying," he claimed. "That's not feasible.... Apple is great if you've got a lot of money and live on an island. It's not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex." Even in Australia, the most expensive iPad 2 (a 64GB model with 3G) runs A$949, and unless Lark plans on bundling an Optimus Maximus and Hela Glider Mouse into the package, we're struggling to see where his estimates came from. In fact, the one thing that major tablet makers have struggled to match the iPad on is price, making the comparison even more galling. 'Tis a shame -- all he would've had to do in order to be taken seriously was point out the lackluster screen resolution, omission of a USB port, the missing SD card slot and disgusting reliance on iTunes. Lesson learned, we guess. Update: Andy himself pinged us to reveal that pricing in the article was actually referring to New Zealand dollars, but confessed that it never cited as such. NZ$1600 rolls down to around $1219, so it starts to make a lot more sense there. This also included basic adapters and such that'd be necessary to make an iPad do fairly basic tasks, like output video and interface with a limited selection of USB peripherals.
No Comment: Dell exec dismisses iPad, can't count
Dell's global head of marketing Andy Lark spoke to CIO Australia this week, and he not only dissed Apple -- a company with a current market cap of $323.3 billion compared to Dell's measly $28.2 billion -- but also found some time to dream up some completely bogus specifications and pricing for the iPad. Lark started by stating that "Apple is great if you've got a lot of money and live on an island. It's not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex." Ahem. That deserves a spot on our No Comment wall of confusion. Next, Lark stated that enterprises were not going to be jumping on iPad deployments, since "an iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you'll be at $1500 or $1600; that's double of what you're paying." Joshua Schnell at Macgasm pointed out that a 16 GB Wi-Fi iPad 2, Apple Wireless Keyboard, iPad Dock and iPad 2 Smart Cover price out at US$666 before taxes. Where the extra $900 - $1000 comes into play is a mystery, unless Dell is selling thousand-dollar mice. Moreover, apparently Lark has no idea that the iPad doesn't need a mouse. It uses a magical and revolutionary "touchscreen" for its user interface. In the annals of Dell executive history, this has to go down as a pretty impressive foot-in-mouth comment; it rivals Michael Dell's famous quote about Apple on October 6, 1997: "What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." Looks like it's time for Andy to go back to school and learn a little bit about his competitors. It might also help to brush up on those math skills.
