Did you hear the news? Never mind the fact that the iPad 2 is selling out all over the world -- a prominent Dell executive has predicted it’s doomed to fail. Meanwhile, an HP executive claims Apple has a “poor relationship” with its partners.
AppleInsider is reporting on a pair of consumer electronics executives who appear to have a case of Apple envy, particularly when it comes to the company’s hot-selling iPad 2 tablet. Unbelievably, an executive from Dell claims that the iPad will be a failure -- even though it’s clearly the market leader already in this category.
“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,” remarked Dell’s head of marketing, Andy Lark. According to CIO Australia, Lark claims that the iPad market share will “eventually succumb” to Android and Windows tablets (presumably those from Dell) because of “pressure from an open enterprise market.”
"Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island,” Lark added. “It’s not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex.”
Never mind the fact that Apple’s competitors are stumbling in their efforts to match Cupertino on price -- the consumers are clearly voting with their wallets, and the iPad 2 is winning thus far.
Meanwhile, Apple can’t catch a break with another CE executive, HP’s senior vice president of Americas Solution Partners, Stephen DeWitt. "Apple's relationship with partners is transactional, completely,” DeWitt complained. “Apple doesn’t have an inclusive philosophy of partner capabilities, and that's just absurd.”
DeWitt’s comments came during an interview with CRN’s Kevin McLaughlin during HP’s Americas Partner Conference in Las Vegas this week. To test the claim, McLaughlin spot-checked with a few channel partners for both HP and Apple.
"Unlike Apple, HP is very channel friendly,” one solution provider remarked confidentially. “And if you have an issue with HP you can pick up the phone and talk to someone. That's something that's impossible with Apple. As an Apple partner, I can say that it really feels like they're holding you hostage sometimes.”
However, it wasn’t all peaches and cream for HP. “I don't hear much about webOS in the marketplace, and it's going to be tough to build a mobility practice around it," revealed one HP partner. "Apple and Android are the two established marketplaces out there. On the tablet side, why wouldn't you just get an iPad?"
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
(Image courtesy of AppleInsider)
transconjohn
March 31, 2011 at 1:49am
I ♥ the comment, "Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island”! What a douche... And while I don't think a $600 iPad is any more expensive than a $600 Dell or HP device, I also live in Montréal... So Yeah, I do have money and live on an Island! So do millions and millions and millions of people from New York to Japan to Hawai'i to Ireland.
Do these CEO and managers think before they speak or do they just spew diarrhea to make their stock holders think they are doing their job?
MacMike
March 30, 2011 at 12:14pm
Lark said, “It’s not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex.” That may have been the case in the 90's, but since that time Apple has learned to "play nice" with other technologies that weren't created by Apple. There isn't much you can't do with an Apple product today, and they often blend into the enterprise environment with very little configuration. This is either a show of ignorance or an attempt to dissuade people from getting an Apple iPad.
Will the iPad succumb to Android and Windows? It's doubtful. Back in the 90's when most people had a PC they'd dissuade people from buying a Mac by saying that everything runs on a PC and you're limited with an Apple product. Now that same argument can be used for Apple because most people will have an iPad and the vast majority of application will be written for it, not the Android or Windows devices. The longer it takes the competitors to copy the iPad and bring their version to market the more weight this argument will hold.
raywes
March 30, 2011 at 8:15am
Well, he's kinda right. I don't have a lot of money, but I do live on an island, Long Island, NY. I still want a iPad 2 though. It'll take awhile, but I will get one soon.
