Dell, Building an Apple or a Lemon? - XPS More Old Than New

XPS More Old Than New

So what does this quasi-luxury PC entail, besides the obviously increased profit margin? Let’s take a good look at the XPS and its newest press release.

The XPS series, as I mentioned, is old news. It used to be a big blue monstrosity of a machine, once nicknamed the “blue bomber,” but was then re-colored silver in the next generation. It has been aimed at gamers who don’t assemble their own systems. Moreover, the XPS has been marketed to gamers who are not concerned with leading edge technology, like AMD processors. Even Michael Dell, founder and chairman of Dell Inc, recognized that the Intel chips his company uses exclusively are inferior to AMD’s. Of course, he added, “We believe Intel is going to regain the high end.” That does a lot of good for XPS performance now.

So the XPS was originally aimed at a segment of computer users who like to build their own PCs and often don’t like Intel processors or care about Dell’s brand name. Kudos to the marketing team that came up with that idea. You can still be sure that gamers did purchase the XPS, but it’s hard for most to take Dell seriously. So, a quick stock-panic and brainstorm later, Dell decides the XPS should appeal more to the average consumer who doesn’t need a PC that is half as fast but also doesn’t know any better.

In the press statement, Michael Dell says, “We're consistently hearing a call for performance, power and style as more consumers see the value of expanding the computer's use for productivity and entertainment…We're delivering superior technology, design and service coupled with an enhanced personalized experience so consumers can get the most out of everything they want from Dell.”

Wait a minute. Dell wants to deliver greater performance and style. The XPS has always had higher performance than the usual Dells. In fact, the spec sheets seem the same as they were before, aside from the fact that Dell is adding some lower end XPS models. And Dell is still avoiding AMD chips. So what exactly do they intend to change besides marketing spin? The tangible improvements Dell claims are three fold:

• Designed for entertainment
• Case style
• Customer experience

Surely everyone has heard about the greatness of PCs in home entertainment systems. Media PCs are already matured components: included DVD player, CD player, high definition video output, hard drive and software to TiVo shows, hard drive space to hold music and slideshows of pictures. Apple already has obvious inroads to the market. It’s about time for Dell to cash in.

Next: I Wanna Be Apple When I Grow Up >>
 

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