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Not only is the company active in establishing technologies, but often it's the kingmaker for emerging standards, Dell's chief technology officer said. In an interview at LinuxWorld Conference and Expo here, Kettler outlined several areas where Dell has gone its own way--over objections from Intel and Microsoft--and has cut behind-the-scenes deals that brought new developments to market.
Essentially, Kettler argued, Dell was responsible for selecting, if not necessarily developing, many of the technologies in today's desktop computers and servers. Among standards for which he said Dell deserves credit are 802.11 wireless networking, PCI Express communications technology and 64-bit extensions to Intel's x86 line of processors.
Dell's assertiveness has led to friction at times between the company and its major allies, however. Just last Monday, Kettler spent eight hours in a meeting with Intel. It was productive, but it "wasn't pretty," he said.
In the past, Microsoft and Intel had more power, said Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technology Associates. There were few alternatives when PC companies wanted to buy chips or operating systems, and not many computer makers were dominant enough to set terms. But now, with major consolidation in the number of PC sellers as well, there are more power struggles, he said.
"Some very large players--Cisco in networking, Microsoft in operating systems, Intel in chips, Dell in PCs, Best Buy in distribution--they're all jockeying for a dominant position, bluffing, feinting," Kay said. And overall, Dell does indeed hold more power than the past. "It's a little braggadocio, but I think essentially the story holds," he added.
But overall, Dell tends to follow Intel's lead and isn't setting the agenda, said Gartner analyst Steve Kleynhans. "They tend to get involved at the point where technology is getting standardized, and they popularize it. They get it out to a lot of people," he said. "But I don't see them as being the driver of a technology or the one that sets the direction."
Dell's duels
In the case of wireless networking, Dell pushed back against Intel's fondness for the now-defunct HomeRF standard, Kettler said. It did so strongly enough to convince the company to switch its support to the 802.11 standard that is widely used today.
Intel saw HomeRF as inexpensive and good for the home. Dell, however, wanted a single technology for work and home, so customers wouldn't have to switch network adapters when they carried their laptops back and forth, Kettler said. Dell convinced Intel to go with 802.11 everywhere, but to price it at the same level as the cheap HomeRF alternative. It argued that Intel would make more money from selling a large number of 802.11 adapters with a slimmer profit margin than from selling smaller amounts of a more expensive adapter geared to work environments.
Kevin Kettler
It was, therefore, Dell's actions that dramatically reduced the cost of 802.11 networking gear, he argued.
Intel declined to comment on specific situations described this story. In general, though, it acknowledged both cooperation and some tension with Dell.
"We love Dell. They indeed play a critical role with innovation and standards as the world's largest seller of PCs, and they certainly keep us on our toes every day," the company said in a statement.
More tension arrived in the area of processors, especially when Intel was faced with a move to advanced chips with 64-bit abilities. Instead of endowing its x86 chips, such as Pentium and Xeon, with 64-bit features, Intel aggressively pushed its Itanium line. Dell, though, urged Intel to boost x86--the direction rival chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices took.
"Next time to you talk to Pat (Gelsinger, head of Intel's server group and its former CTO), ask him where the demand for 64-bit memory extensions (to x86 chips) came from," Kettler said.
See more CNET content tagged:
IEEE 802.11, Wintel, Dell, Intel, R&D
AND wields so much more power in the industry than Dell, it's a
joke this article was ever written.
Ted McCarty
You people at Dell really believing this junk that you say?
Dell does no more for the industry than any leading company would. They get to set some direction because of their size. I'm sure that HP and IBM can give examples of how they'd "established" something in the industry.
Their blind loyalty to Intel continues to hurt the industry as a whole.
Yellow; pale with a plastic shovel.
Dell was an earlier adopter in the PC world for 802.11, but Apple put Wi-Fi on the map with their Airport hub and cards. Apple didn't develop wi-fi, but it saw a good thing and put it on the market first.
Geesh..
While other's were going to DDR you stuck with PC133, why? Because Intel still wanted to prove that RAMBUS was a much better architecture. If you had any say about what Intel was delivering to you then what happened there?
You followed Intel all the way through the P4 lineage even after they hit the thermal "brick wall" of 4GHz and had to back off to 3.8 GHz. Where was your CTO then? Intel promised that the P4 would go to 5GHz which was almost required for the P4's long pipeline.
I won't comment on the MS side of the house because I actually thing that they do listen to you.
But let me put it this way, Dell may as well be named Intdell because you totally depend on Intel to tell you what to do. You design your systems off of Intel reference boards and you are Intel's lapdog (although I can think of a better term but can't post it here).
Fred Dunn
They paraphrase the same thing they have been saying over and over but not doing and it's still news.
They say these things I think becasue they are trynig to convince Wintel, but these days the pro AMD statements made from Dell must be a running joke around the Intel water coolers.
Boss: "You get those TPS reports?"
Dolt: "They are on your desk right next to the press release that Dell began shipping AMD desktops"
As a large customer they were able to influence the Intel wireless standard and push them towards the 64 extensions. Good for them, it sounds like standard business practices to me, but it only seems to work one-way. Most successful businesses listen to their customer base and respond, Intel listened to Dell, but Dell isn't listening to the consumer. When they actually decide to broaden their horizons and offer something up outside of the Wintel playbook, then maybe they can claim to have a leadership role in technology. Until that time they are just a successful lapdog that occasionally nips at the master.
Dell could undercut all the exisitng PC makers with this model, because they didn't do research and development or have to support brick and mortar storefronts. They were grabbing market share from everyone. Compaq and HP merged as a result of this threat. During the confusion of the merger, dell grabbed even more share of the market. Perhaps dell expanded too rapidly or the other makers now have their act together, as dell is now showing cracks in its armor.
A company of inovation? Hardly. They may have influenced others, but dell shouldn't be boasting about being responsible for inovation.
computers. Ang mundong ginagalawan mo ay para lamang sa mga
hunghang na tulad mo. Huwag ka sanang makahawa.
Dells
Apple was the first to get rid of floppies.
Apple was the first to have super drives where you could write DVD and CDs using the same drive.
Apple had the touch pads on laptops most use today.
And of course Apple had mice first :)
Dell is a follower. Maybe they push things out into the pc market, but it's usually well after the market has been there and doing things on their own for sometime. There is never any risk involved.
Frankly, all these Apple love letters are about as out of place here as posting Linux kernel patch notes in a thread about a new version of Internet Explorer.
Now, with Apple able to compete directly with Dell... Dell has to be more than a computer assembler. Now, they've magically crowned themselves kings of innovation, thanks to Dell's P.R. department and c|Net's lack of journalistic instinct.
Most people know Apple is an innovator. But Dell is no more innovator than is your local police department an innovator for choosing a Dodge Charger instead of the Ford Crown Vic or Chevy Caprice. For all we know, Dell has *hurt* innovation by using their market share to force suppliers to toe Dell's line.
Now, with Apple as a competitor, we'll likely see some real innovation from the Wintel side of the fence.
NOW THAT was funny. Oh look here comes Apple with their way over priced, running XP, un-supported Intel box with different plastic....look out they are going to move from 4% to 4.5% market share!!!!!!!!!!!
Wake up please.
They should be happy with their role in the industry, and shouldn't feel the need to make stuff up.
cutting costs of their products. Sometimes to an absurd level
(i.e. the option to add or remove the mouse pad). I don't
remember Dell being involved with creating any new
technologies. They slap together off the shelf components from
several suppliers into a box and slap the Dell logo on it. What
has changed since the time Michael Dell was assembling
computer parts from his dorm room to this day is economies of
scale. Better inventory and supply chain management and
improvements in cutting the cost of manufacturing down. Dell
was probably one of first batch of large companies to off shore
their tech support and move their production from the US to
China. Calling Dell a technology innovator is a joke. Individually
IBM, HP, Apple, SGI, Sun innovate far more technology than Dell
ever has. Dell is the biggest assembler of computer components
and parts like Gateway, Acer, Packard Bell and is so far doing a
better job of assembling computers than their competition. I'll
give Dell credit for that, but definately not for innovative
technology. This article should be put under the humor column
of C|Net
- nothing new
- by April 10, 2006 6:27 PM PDT
- The only thing dell is inovative at is sticking it to their customers and the exec's on how to in- crease their pay. Lousy service may pay for awhile but after awhile it will come back to the bottom line (of course only the poor working stiffs will feel the pain)
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