Erdos Had The Number First

So Dell just hired the fourth horseman (OK, he’s not that bad, but its not a good sign) X-Motoroller Ron Garriques
. Here’s the deal, Moto is dead. They got lucky with the Razr but they are getting their lunch eaten by the Koreans.

And this guy is one of those people who thinks that if they just make their products pretty everything will be fine. Well, here’s the problem:  When you comodify yourself, you can’t differentiate.  Dell makes a commodity product, they are the GM of the computer world. Which is the source of their problems, the Chinese can out-dell Dell.  And so, now they are thrashing around, looking for Silver Bullets and they’ve pounced on this guy. I’d bet they’re seeing Apple be so successful and think “hey man, if our boxes looked good we’d be able raise prices!”. The problem is that people already understand Dell to be a company that produces comodity boxes.  They’re not going to see a nice looking Dell and convert any more than a Porche driver buys a Chrysler because she found one that looks nice.

The other problem is that Cell phones are not computers.  People can afford to make fashionable phone choices because they’re cheap.  Edgy computers are not cheap, and a cheap edgy computer won’t sell. Dell already proved that with Alienware (which had a really nice placement last week in USA Networks’ Psyche).   They’ve hired the wrong guy on many fronts.
Dell?  Sell!