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Dell cozies up with HP’s largest notebook supplies
I
was doing laptop design and price research late last year and realized,
in my opinion, that Hewlett-Packard Company ‘s retail laptop computers
seemed quite a bit more stylish and functional than similar offerings
from rival Dell. HP’s glossy consumer notebooks seemed to give more
bang for the buck, had great new styling and in many cases, were
cheaper from a local Best Buy Co., Inc. store than a less-stylish
(boring) laptop box direct from Dell Inc.’s website. In addition,
touching and feeling a laptop computer in a store makes buyers out of
many as opposed to seeing a picture on a website. And recent history
tells us HP surpassed Dell in global market share — I wonder why?Dell
is obviously not resting on its laurels here, and is giving more and
more of its laptop computer contract manufacturing business to
Taiwanese firm Wistron, who right now may be the largest laptop system
manufacturer for Hewlett-Packard as well. Remember those glossy and
well-designed HP laptops I was talking about? They’re all made by
Wistron based on a design by HP. More and more market share in the PC
industry is shifting to laptop systems instead of desktop systems, so
for Dell to give new business to Wistron in addition to Compal (its
largest contract manufacturer for laptops currently) makes perfect
sense.Dell’s reported larger order from Wistron would make the
Taiwanese company the second-largest maker of laptop systems for Dell.
The one thing Dell needs in the sub-$1,000 consumer laptop market is
design finesse, though. HP accomplished that in my opinion with
Wistron, as just looking at newer HP consumer laptops gives me the feel
of an Apple Inc. laptop system (to a point). With laptops having been
boring flat boxes for so long, HP’s design finesse comes shining
through (and Sony Corporation has a great design in laptops as well).
In addition to signing on Wistron to make a ton more Dell laptop
systems, can the Round Rock company get its act together in terms of a
nicer design? Recent hire Ron Garriques may be able to accomplish that
— and it’s desperately needed if Dell wants to start taking market
share back from HP.
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