Pocket PC Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

"In a confirmation for the ages, Dell spokesperson Andrew Bowins has clearly stated that the company is "developing mobile devices for China Mobile," giving the Round Rock powerhouse access to the biggest mobile subscriber base on the entire planet."

Scuttlebutt has it that the first Dell smartphone will run a version of Android, but given Dell's previous history with Windows Mobile there's always a chance that WM may fit in there somewhere. And even though China's the initial target market, I find it hard to believe that Dell would confine itself to marketing smartphone's there. I'd say there's more than an even chance we'll see Dell branded handsets elsewhere, and hopefully with Windows Mobile.

Yesterday we found out that the CEO of Palm, Ed Colligan, is leaving the company after being there for 16 years. Executive Chairman John Rubinstein will take the reigns as the CEO tomorrow, June 12.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Dell is warming up their acquisition engine again and there is a lot of speculation that the big company talked about is Palm. From Dell's perspective, it makes sense. They got in the PDA market and did well until smartphones started taking over and PDA's were on the way out. They have been working internally on their own phone, but acquiring Palm makes a ton of sense. Palm the design team, knowledge and carrier relationships.

What do you think?

"After signaling its intent to follow Apple's wildly successful iPhone into the smartphone business, Dell's first attempts to produce a phone have been rejected by the carries for being too dull and lacking enough differentiation to stand out in a competitive environment, according to a report."

Ouch. Apparently the design could run either Windows Mobile or Google's Android platform. It failed to get any interest though. The research report suggests carriers either want the basic phone that is inexpensive or a Wow! device to compete with high end phones like the iPhone or G1. I suspect Dell did something that would have been loved by IT managers, but not consumers. Maybe they should let their AlienWare division have a crack at it.

"Today’s Wall Street Journal has an intriguing story about Dell’s apparent plans to enter the smart phone business. It’s not clear what platform Dell will use. Apparently Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile are on the table. Maybe they’ll use both. But here’s the detail that caught my attention: The phones are being designed in an office in the Chicago area. That to me says this Dell phone will essentially be designed by former Motorola people."

It would not surprise me to see Dell hire ex-Motorola employees to design and develop their new smartphones. However there are a few industrial design firms in the Chicago area that have worked with Motorola in the past and could be working with Dell in the future. I think the real interesting part of this story is how the Dell smartphone rumors, just like the Zune Phone rumors, will not die. There has been speculation for years that Dell would jump back into the smartphone realm but to be honest I really doubt we will see this happen. With Dell's announcement last week that their sales have dropped over 16% in the past year and they will be cutting down on costs, jumping into a new already crowded market doesn't seem like the best way to recoup their lost sales.

"Dell Inc., aiming to rev up sales as its mainstay personal-computer business struggles in the recession, is preparing a move into cellphones as early as next month, said people familiar with the matter. The Round Rock, Texas, company has had a group of engineers working on the phones for more than a year from an office in the Chicago area, these people said. They produced prototypes built on Google Inc.'s Android operating system and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile software, these people said."

The rumours have been swirling for a couple of weeks now, but not with any authority behind them. Now that the Wall Street Journal has weighed in, everyone's picking up the story - I'll leave it to you to decide just how authoritative WSJ is (subscription required to read the full article). In addition, AlleyInsider (via unwiredview.com) has a source that states a launch date of September 9 (09/09/09 - geddit?), and the device(s) will be called the mePhone. Around the web, we've got reactions from Gizmodo and CNet, which basically pick up on the WSJ story while wired.com in an earlier article has additional analysis. Can we hope for an announcement at MWC (Feb 16-19)? Not long now!

"Dell reportedly plans to resume its handheld device business and the company may team up with Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) to develop Windows Mobile-based handheld devices, according to market sources in Taiwan. Dell has been reorganizing its team for handheld devices since it hired Ron Garriques, a former executive vice president at Motorola in charge of its cell phone division, in early 2007, the sources indicated."



If you've been keeping a close eye on the headlines since Dell gave up its Axim line early last year, there's no doubt you'd have heard about claims that the company had its sights set on releasing a string of new smartphones, which would be a first for the company and also mark a welcome return to the Windows Mobile market. Sadly, the majority of these claims have remained unsubstantiated. Not today, it seems. In a report published by DigiTimes, it's been said that Dell and Foxconn are set to shake hands and work together to produce GPS-enabled PDAs and smartphones branded with the Dell logo. And if this turns out to be true, all you Dell fans (and we know there are a lot of you out there) will have a reason to rejoice.