What do you expect from a ‘head of marketing’?
30 March 2011
Andy Lark, Dell’s global head of marketing, gives his interesting — if predictable — take on the iPad & the tablet landscape. There’s lots to enjoy here.
“I couldn’t be happier that Apple has created a market and built up enthusiasm but longer term, open, capable and affordable will win, not closed, high price and proprietary.”
Open, capable & affordable will win, you say?
Open: as in Honeycomb? The OS that Google have admitted they rushed to market, making design tradeoffs along the way? The one that’s definitely not ‘open’?
Capable, as in ‘includes Flash’? Yeah. That sounds like an awesome experience.
Affordable — as in the Motorola Xoom? The cheapest Xoom costs $599. The cheapest iPad costs $499.
“An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you’ll be at $1500 or $1600; that’s double of what you’re paying […] That’s not feasible.”
Someone get Mr Lark a new calculator. And, whilst you’re at it, tell him that you can’t use a mouse with an iPad. Aside from it adding to the cost, it, uh, won’t work.
“…Our strategy is multi-OS […] We will do Windows 7 coupled with Android Honeycomb, and we’re really excited. We think that giving people that choice is very important.”
“We don’t really know which will sell more — Windows or Android. So we’re offering both. The more OS variations you offer consumers, the better. Look at Windows 7!”
Time to shut Apple down and give the money back to the shareholders. Definitely.