Dell Mobile Phone Launching In China

A source with knowledge of the situation tells us that Dell is launching (or at least announcing) a mobile phone in China in the next day or two. We are trying to verify the information and gather more details on the hardware and operating system now.

Our sources on new hardware coming out of Asia tend to be spot on (we broke the news of the second and third generation Amazon Kindles, the launch of the Palm Pre and the existence of the second Palm WebOS phone and generally have good information on sales figures for iPhones, Kindles and other devices). But in this case the information we’ve received is extremely thin.

There have been reports of Dell launching a phone in the Chinese market in recent months, with rumors of the carrier partner being China Mobile in one case and China Unicom in another.

There is also wide speculation on the operating system, but we’re guessing it’s Android. Dell has also been working with Google on an Android-powered tablet computer in recent months. But in April Reuters had a report that Dell may be creating a proprietary operating system with China-based software maker Red Office.

What we’ve heard on the hardware: iPhone-like, touchscreen, no physical keyboard. that’s it for now. Keep an eye on the Dell China site.

Dell Mini 11 revealed in leaked netbook roadmap

Get ready for the Dell Mini 11! Yup, it looks like Dell’s laptop roadmap has been leaked, and the Mini 11 features prominently. The Mini 10 also gets some love because, why not?

For one, there’s going to be a Mini 11 SKU that give you the option of using Windows Vista—a first. Then Dell sees fit to throw in a 3G modem for broadband “everywhere” (unless you live in the middle of nowhere, that is), and updated Intel Atom processors. Good stuff, if you’re into netbooks.

Somewhere, Doug “netbook” Aamoth is smiling at the thought of a Dell Mini 11.

Dell Belatedly Buys Adamo.com Domain

Last week, a blog post hit Techmeme detailing how Dell had screwed up by not securing Adamo.com for its ultra-thin notebook, which CrunchGear’s John Biggs spotted at SXSW a day before its official release on March 17.

It’s not like they tried: the former owner of the domain name, Tucows subsidiary YummyNames, has no record of ever even being approached for a sale or lease of the internet address. Dell claims they had a broker contact the firm anonymously, who was quickly convinced the price would be too high (yet YummyNames leases domains from $750 per month).

The computer manufacterer instead went with AdamoByDell.com but belatedly realized it wouldn’t be such a terrible idea to own or at least use Adamo.com too. Now they’ve finally made a move and acquired it outright for an undisclosed sum which was probably much higher than what they’d have paid a couple of weeks ago, according to Domain Name Wire. Both domain names now redirect to the product website.

As DNW points out, Apple also purchased the iPhone.com domain name after launching the product, and there are many more historic examples of this. No doubt, companies will keep making mistakes like this in the future as well.

Dell says China business grew 28%

Dell Inc’s China sales grew 28 percent in unit terms in the year to January, accounting for about 5 percent of the company’s global business, Chief Executive Michael Dell said on Thursday.

The world’s second-largest personal computer maker also purchased about $23 billion of products last year from China, Dell’s largest overseas market.

“Last year we spent $23 billion in China, and that made us one of the largest purchasers of electronic equipment and goods in China and one of the largest exporters,” Dell told reporters at an event to introduce the firm’s newest products.

Dell is introducing new server and storage products aimed at cost-conscious companies, betting that it can win market share as competition intensifies.

Dell itself has been in cost-cutting mode for some time, shedding jobs and overhauling its corporate structure as well as increasing lower cost purchases from China.

The company posted a sharp fall in fourth quarter revenue as consumers bought cheaper personal computers and overall demand remained weak, but cost cuts helped profits beat expectations.

Dell said customers were still hesitant to buy, but the company had seen “steady” orders since the middle of January.

“Generally speaking around the middle of January we saw the beginning of stabilization in the demand trend. Demand has been steady since then,” he said.

While unit shipments increased 28 percent in China — and 34 percent in Brazil, Russia, India and China together — the company still gets about half of its revenue from the United States, a higher proportion than larger rival Hewlett-Packard Co.

Dell said last year it aimed to increase the ratio of sales from outside the United States to two-thirds within five years.

Dell competes with network equipment maker Cisco Systems, which is moving into the server market while HP has started to offer a package of services to corporate clients after its purchase of EDS.

HP also posted disappointing quarterly revenues and cut its full-year outlook.

Michael Dell believes talk of IBM possibly buying Sun Microsystems could help accelerate a migration to servers based on standard components, Dell’s mainstay product.

However, Dell said he would be cautious about spending the $9.5 billion his company has in cash and cash equivalents.

“We will be pretty careful on finding the right things that fit with our business,” he said.

Dell is still focused on data centers, services, software, servers and storage products. “Those are likely areas where Dell is likely to use its capital for non-organic growth,” he said.

Dell goes back to the (smartphone) drawing board

Attention-grabbing rumors of a Dell smartphone began to surface this past January, and then again in February. Now, more than 2 months since the web-wide guessing game first began, there is fresh speculation regarding Dell’s secret handset.

Unfortunately, it’s probably not the kind of hype or publicity that Dell is hoping for. According to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu, Dell’s recent attempts to develop a competitive smartphone have been rejected by potential carriers due to an overall “lack of interest.”

Wu goes on to explain that Dell’s current prototypes (which include both WinMo and Android-powered devices) failed to offer any distinguishing features from the ever-growing field of smartphone competitors. He also noted that due to limited carrier subsidies, there would be very little room for Dell to sustain reasonable profit margins from the rumored handset(s).

On the bright side, Dell has apparently “gone back to the drawing board” in an effort to craft a more “distinct” smartphone. In light of Dell’s new found interest in design (see: Adamo), part of me wants to believe that Dell may just be able to pull off a decent if not attractive smartphone. On the other hand, it is Dell.

What do you think? Can Dell actually produce a worthwhile smartphone (the dPhone, perhaps?) that can seriously compete with Palm’s upcoming Pre, Apple’s pending iPhone 3.0, or any of the slew of feature-packed HTC handsets expected to drop later this year?