How Real is Dell in Mobile?

There’s been some discussion with market analysts and the press on Dell’s smartphone/ tablet / PC/ cloud strategy and if they can be all things in the world of high tech. Is it smartphones for consumers and business? Is it a one-stop shop for products and services for its corporate customers? Is it PCs and laptops for everyone? Saikat Chaudhuri, a Wharton management professor summed it up well "I'm not sure if Dell is hedging its bets or if it is uncertain of where it wants to go, or if it wants to be an all-round big player, like an HP that straddles both worlds. At present, it looks like it's not sure where it can make much impact."

Dell says they know their market. “We have found our value proposition,” Dell’s CMO, Ferrand, said recently in an interview. “A year ago, consumers didn’t know what we stood for in consumer computing. Now our emphasis is on giving you seamless access to your digital life, service that is second to none, and value.” Is this all things to all people?

What we do know is that the market is in flux. On an individual level, it’s difficult purchasing just a smartphone, let alone figuring where all the other technologies fit. Some common questions - do I really need an iPhone with their browsing and podcasts for business? Is the Blackberry that much better for email? Can Android even handle business? Customers we talk to are openly debating the merits of tablets versus smartphones and how this will impact their enterprise work. They’re finding it really hard to choose as technology continues to bombard them.

Back to Dell, they’re offering a bit of everything. Depending how you look at it, the Streak tablet looks like a huge business phone or too small a tablet for business use. They also have a flip laptop that functions as a tablet. Both these offerings pale in comparison to Apple and Samsung in the smartphone and tablet space who appear to be very focused in what they offer. Still, Dell says they’re in the mobile space. They even took out their 25,000 corporate Blackberries for their own smartphones (at the very least, they can learn from this). Dell also wants to be in cloud computing and acquired Compellent Technologies in an effort to tap this upcoming lucrative market which delivers software and data over the Internet. And Dell remains the number 2 market leader in PC sales behind HP. They appear to be everywhere.

There is a fundamental problem, suggests Chaudhuri- "Dell sees the need for diversification, but does it see the need for transformation? There is a big difference." Still, Dell says they are focused. “We're moving much more into the core of IT and the data center, increasingly with our own intellectual property,” Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell recently told analysts. This bodes well for investors as the stock has finally started moving back up after years of decline. But with the mobile transformation, one questions how real Dell is in this market.

In mobile, I don’t see their silver bullets or why I’d choose them over the real mobile players for tablets or smartphones. Maybe I’m thinking wrong and a rainbow offering like Dell is the best positioning to have in high tech. For a $60 Billion global company and an estimated cash reserve of $14 Billion, Dell could buy almost anything to become a leader in any area. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.