Copacetic

What do Dell do? They provide low cost computing resources to home users. Why is Dell’s star fading? Because they have  hit rock bottom, there is no other place to save money, their existing model has run out of steam. Instead they have made desperate lunges at the Games market and the printer ink market, neither of which are dell Core Competencies and therefore they struggle in both these spaces.

So what should they do? Well what’s cheaper than having Dell computer in your home? Not having a Dell computer in your home. What Dell should do is offer home users access to grid computing on a pay-as-you-go basis with access to as little or as much computing power as you require (ala S3 from Amazon but with Windows as the base operating system). They can still sell you a monitor, keyboard, mouse and box, but that  box is just a network connection to a blade server hosted in a Dell data centre that does all your computing.

They own the Windows and Office licenses, that you lease as part of your subscription (which keeps Microsoft happy, as they continue to stuff huge volumes of Vista and Office into  the market place) but they manage the storage and compute power, keep your computer humming and totally insulate you from hardware and software failure. The low cost set-top size boxed they give you can even include a cheap as chips disk to do really efficient local caching of content.

They get to continue building systems, but the systems are now almost completely rack based which means they can make much more credible sales to business. They also smooth out their revenue model because it goes to monthly subscriptions rather than lumpy seasonal purchases.  Finally they sell much higher priced more keenly specified desktops to the remaining market segment that previously were their Alienware customers.

Of course plans like these require a pair a cojones, which are sadly lacking in Dell at the moment.

Joel says,

I’ve been using Vista on my home laptop since it shipped, and can say with some conviction that nobody should be using it as their primary operating system — it simply has no redeeming merits to overcome the compatibility headaches it causes. Whenever anyone asks, my advice is to stay with Windows XP (and to purchase new systems with XP preinstalled).

My own Dell PC crapped out a few hours before a critical presentation so I had to go retail for a replacement and retail means Vista these days. My own personal Vista stinkbombs are,

• I can’t connect to a XP hosted printer share, at all, ever. This seems to a common problem judging from my web searching, one that Microsoft hasn’t addressed.
• All the bells and whistles on the new windows explorer just make my head hurt but the one consistent feature I used on XP (the ability the view a folder of photos as a film strip) has been removed.
• It takes way more memory

Stay away as long as you can in the hope that the sound of all us early adopters wailing will make Microsoft see sense.

Vista reminds me of an old skit on X-Windows so with credits to Phrack:

Vista. A mistake carried out to perfection.
Vista. Dissatisfaction guaranteed.
Vista. Don’t get frustrated without it.
Vista. Even your dog won’t like it.
Vista. Flaky and built to stay that way.
Vista. Complex nonsolutions to simple nonproblems.
Vista. Flawed beyond belief.
Vista. Form follows malfunction.
Vista. Garbage at your fingertips.
Vista. ignorance is our most important resource.
Vista. It could be worse, but it’ll take time.
Vista. It could happen to you.
Vista. Japan’s secret weapon.
Vista. Let it get in *your* way.
Vista. Live the nightmare.
Vista. More than enough rope.
Vista. Never had it, never will.
Vista. No hardware is safe.
Vista. Power tools for power fools.
Vista. Power tools for power losers.
Vista. Putting new limits on productivity.
Vista. Simplicity made complex.
Vista. The cutting edge of obsolescence.
Vista. The art of incompetence.
Vista. The defacto substandard.
Vista. The first fully modular software disaster.
Vista. The joke that kills.
Vista. The problem for your problem.
Vista. There’s got to be a better way.
Vista. Warn your friends about it.
Vista. You’d better sit down.
Vista. You’ll envy the dead.