Dell pushes Linux in Comdex keynote; Dell’s mum leads assault on palmtops

By Ian Lynch, VNU Net

This was Michael Dell’s keynote speech, but on Monday afternoon
it was his mother who stole the show, leading the counter offensive
against those pesky palmtops everyone else wanted to praise at
Comdex.

Momma Dell starred in an entertaining video of customer
interviews, the purpose of which appeared to be to stress the
reality of selling technology to the public by giving them what
they want.

What did they want? Wireless laptops running non-proprietary
software, not handhelds, palmtops or pocket PCs as their main
computer.

Meanwhile, Momma Dell’s most famous son informed his audience
that Dell now builds $50m worth of computers direct to order
through his company’s website every day, and that this accounts for
half the firm’s revenues.

By the end of next year, he said, he wants 80 per cent of the
firm’s business to be generated through Dell.com.

Like mother, like son, Michael also downplayed devices smaller,
lighter and more portable than a 1.3kg notebook. He was, however,
keen on wireless technology and promised that all new laptops from
Dell would be wireless compatible.

He argued that the device of choice for mobile computing would
be wireless-access laptops, not palmtops, PocketPCs, mobile phones,
‘tablets’ or any other smaller device that might prove a bitter
pill for his company to swallow.

While Dell acknowledged that handhelds would become more
popular, he dismissed Microsoft’s Tablet as this year’s fad, and
said personal digital assistants generally will only ever
complement laptop and desktop PCs.

They will, however, require more servers. “The internet is
driving the area we’re most excited about right now – servers and
storage,” he said.

Indeed, Dell predicted that within five years, there will be
20 times the number of servers in operation in the world as there
are now. He also praised the potential of Linux, emphasised Dell’s
support for it, and warned that pressure would mount on proprietary
software as Linux continued to gain momentum.

Concluding, he called upon web-based business operations to
improve how they protect customer privacy. According to Dell, 90
per cent of its customers still believe that concerns over online
privacy are holding back the development of the internet.