Editorials
Rumor: Dell is Working on a MID
Yesterday the Intertubes were ripe with a rumor that Dell is working on a Mobile Internet Device using an ARM based processor. Yawn.
Just about everyone is working on some form of Mobile Internet Device these days and just about everyone is working on one with chips from Intel, ARM chips, and NVidia’s platform. And of course they are all working with both Linux variants and Android. But just about everybody, including Dell, has been doing this for some time now, and while we’ve seen some movement, I’d label the devices we’ve seen as short lived, as evidenced by the limited marketing that seems to be focusing only on the enthusiast niche.
Yesterday’s rumor got traction because it came from the Wall St. Journal and focused on a big player. It also contained a sentence that said the project might be delayed or scrapped entirely. No surprise there.
Call them MIDs, call them UMPCs, call them whatever you want to call them, the variants are many and everyone is looking for a sweet spot that might break through, but there seems to be an atmosphere of throwing things against the wall to see what sticks.I guess that makes sense as a way to proceed because so much changes so fast in these markets.
The best comment I read about this yesterday came from Rob Beschizza at BoingBoing Gadgets that said,
This illustrates their desire to design perfect consumers rather than perfect computers
Robert
06/30/2009 at 9:26 pm
The story about Mid’s has been repeated many times before.
I believe the only way that Mid’s will fly is if manufactures prices them less than $399.00US, are you listening Dell.
Last year Netbooks took flight cause Intel pushed an excellent marketing strategy at Computex 2008.
Everyone in the fall of 2008 couldn’t believe that they could buy a netbook for less than $450.00US.
This year at Computex 2009, it was Arm’s turn for a marketing strategy about Smartbooks, lets see what happens in the fall.
The only Manufacture whom I think has come close to making Mid’s happen is Apple with their Ipod Touch, less than $300US.
But in September 2009, a new Ipod Touch should be in stores, lets see what comes out.