Dell chief hits out at “shiny” iPad

 

Brian Corrigan

Dell Australia managing director Joe Kremer has refused to give up the tablet computing race, claiming “shiny” devices like Apple’s iPad are too difficult for business to support.

Apple has had great success getting its tablet computer into the hands of senior executives and board members since launching the iPad two years ago.

Personal computer makers have tried to counter this with models of their own but with very little success. The iPad still accounts for about three quarters of all tablet sales and has been the only game in town for corporate buyers.

The PC industry has now pinned its hopes on the upcoming launch of Microsoft’s Windows 8 software as its final chance to hit back against the iPad. The biggest advantage that devices running this software will have is that they integrate more easily with the desktop and notebook computers that employees are already using to do their jobs.

Referring to the iPad, Mr Kremer told a media and analyst briefing in Sydney on Wednesday afternoon: “People might be attracted to some of these shiny devices but technology departments can’t afford to support them.
“If you are giving a presentation and something fails on the software side it might take four days to get it up and running again. I don’t think this race has been run yet.”

Despite resistance from some technology departments, the iPad has been a big hit with senior executives and a growing number of companies have issued them to board members so that they don’t have to carry reams of paper around with them. If the devices are lost or stolen they can be “killed” remotely to prevent sensitive business information falling into the wrong hands.

High-profile failures to compete with the iPad have included Hewlett-Packard’s TouchPad, which was killed just six weeks after it launched, Research In Motion’s PlayBook, which has contributed to massive writedowns at the BlackBerry maker because of slow sales, and Cisco’s Cius, which the networking giant announced two weeks ago would be discontinued.

Samsung has had limited success among consumers with its Galaxy Tab line without putting a huge dent in iPad sales, while it was reported this week that sales of Amazon’s low-cost Kindle Fire had fallen 80 per cent during the first three months of 2012 after making a fast start with US consumers in the Christmas quarter.

While he would not be drawn on the likely uptake of Windows 8 among the business community when it is launched later this year, Mr Kremer said there was significant pent-up demand among customers that had skipped the previous two releases of the software and were still running their computers on Windows XP.
Mr Kremer was not confident about technology spending during the next six months, saying businesses were still keeping a careful eye on events in Europe and interest rate movements.

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