March 2009 - Direct2Dell

It has been years in the making, months of glimpses and speculations and today, it is here – Adamo By Dell. If you have seen the Web site, or any of the advertisements it is pretty clear that Adamo By Dell is something totally different for us, and it’s something we couldn’t be more excited about bringing to the world.

By now you know that Adamo means “to fall in love with,” but you may not have known it was actually the code name for the product while it was in development, because that is what we were striving to create – something to fall in love with. Eventually we couldn’t fathom it having any other name, it just fit.

In looking at Adamo and what it stands for, take a look at the evolution of design from Dell over the last year and you will see we’ve made huge strides, and our depth and breadth offers a great deal of personalization. Today’s announcement continues that evolution and rounds out our offerings with Adamo at the design pinnacle from Dell. I’m particularly proud of the engineering team in putting the whole package together around performance, craftsmanship, and design to create something that you will really fall in love with.

Note: Click on either of these images to see a larger version. Or you can click here to see more photos on Dell’s Official Flickr page. And here are some photos of the Pearl Adamo from Brian Solis at SXSW.

Here’s a couple of videos for those who are interested. The first StudioDell gives an overview of Dell’s first product in the Adamo line and features insight from Nicolas Denhez, the creative director of our consumer industrial design team.

And the second highlights the packaging that Adamo customers will receive.

Since we introduced it earlier this week, the chatter about Adamo continues. Blog posts from John Biggs at CrunchGear and CNET rose to the top of Techmeme. There are almost 600 media articles since we made it official. Beyond that, folks are still voicing their reactions to Adamo on Twitter.

Lots of folks reacted to the price point, noting that the entry configuration on the MacBook Air is less expensive than our Adamo $1,999 system. Our starting configuration includes a 128GB SSD drive – and adding a 128GB SSD drive to the MacBook Air adds $500 to the bottom line. And our $2699 system offers 4GB RAM or built-in mobile broadband for a $200 premium over the MacBook Air’s high-end configuration.

We understand that Adamo will not appeal to every customer. Our marketing efforts have made it clear that Adamo is a high-end product – not mainstream, and certainly not gaming. Adamo is an expansion of a whole portfolio of mobile products that starts with our Dell Minis, which have become some of the most popular netbooks in the market, to almost a dozen other laptop options in an array of sizes (13 to 17-inch) and price bands ($499, $799, $1,000 and up). While the Adamo laptop represents the pinnacle of our mobile lineup, we’ll continue to invest at all price points to deliver a solid mix of performance and technology no matter how much you’re looking to spend.

In our view, value can still play a role in higher price points. Emphasis on design is part of that premium for Adamo. The ID team was inspired by and spent time with luxury items outside of the technology space, like fine Swiss timepieces, fine writing instruments as well of some of the less traditional like women’s cosmetics packaging and high-end cars. All of these items have a certain heft to them, a solid feeling of quality, and that was the design goal for the Adamo laptop.

We followed our own path in terms of design to deliver a full set of features in the thinnest laptop in the world, including 13.4-inch 16:9 HD display with edge-to edge glass, solid state drives, support for up to 4GB DDR3 RAM, and best-in-class connectivity including a standard Gigabit Ethernet port, 802.11n and optional mobile broadband (3G).

We’ve also seen some comments from Direct2Dell readers like hht001 who compare the Adamo against the MacBook 13. In my opinion, the Studio XPS 13 which we announced on at CES 2009 is a more direct comparison. With a starting weight of 4.85 lbs., the Studio XPS 13 combines more performance and features than just about another other thin and light notebook available today.

The Studio XPS 13 is also the only 13-inch laptop to support two GPUs via the Hybrid SLI technology. The exterior design draws inspiration from luxury automobiles – Obsidian Black high-gloss finish with brushed aluminum and fine leather accents. It also features an edge-to-edge HD display and expansive backlit keyboard. And checking Dell.com today, $1,099 buys a Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz processor, 13-inch edge-to-edge display with 2.0 MP webcam, slot load DVD+/-RW with upconversion, 4GB DDR3 memory; 320GB 7200 RPM hard drive; NVIDIA GeForce 9400M G graphics, and 802.11n wireless, plus all the ports (1394a, HDMI, USB/ eSATA). It also supports PowerShare, which is a technology we first introduced in our Latitude E family of notebooks that allows customers to charge portable devices through USB even when the system is powered off.

As Alex mentioned in his previous post, Adamo is meant to serve as the laboratory and inspiration for design ideas that will flow through the rest of Dell’s consumer product portfolio in the future. The thought and creativity that went into bringing Adamo to market resulted in some amazing innovations. The Consumer Group at Dell has been unleashed and is well on its way testing boundaries across a variety of personal technology devices. Stay tuned…

Today is a day that I consider myself fortunate, even proud, to be working for Dell. Today, we're taking the next step in our products and services portfolio enabling you, our customers, to accelerate your enterprise efficiency.

I've worked for Dell for nearly ten years now and have seen us move from an "up-and-comer" in the data center space in the late 90s to where we are today, a company that can stand toe-to-toe with every single enterprise solutions provider in the industry, and provide unbeatable value. All without an army of consultants to make it happen.

At events taking place in San Francisco, London, Dubai and Sydney, Dell is introducing its most comprehensive enterprise portfolio line-up ever, including 14 new products and associated software and services to help you transform your IT infrastructure into one that is smarter and more efficient: the result is a technology infrastructure that saves companies time and money and frees up people to focus on high-value projects.

Here's what we announced today:

• Five new Dell PowerEdge servers and blade servers, and three new Dell Precision workstations, all based on Intel's Nehalem processors;
• Five new enterprise-class storage hardware, software and services offerings built on the Dell EqualLogic PS6000 series arrays (ideal for virtualized environments);
• General availability of the Dell NX4 network attached storage system;
• New Dell ProSupport, ProManage and ProConsult services offerings designed to help you get the most out of your technology investments; and,
• New innovative systems management functionality that will enable you to have a simplified and consolidated view of your entire infrastructure, whether it's Dell hardware or equipment from our competitors.

To see more images of all the products we unveiled today, click on this link to see them on Dell's Official Flickr page.

As you'll hear in my interview with Steve Schuckenbrock below, customers of all sizes are facing reduced budgets. They're being asked to extend the life-cycles of their existing solutions. They're looking to drive cost savings and innovation by considering virtualization and cloud computing projects. They want to reduce the cost of their services and maintenance. They want an alternative to legacy enterprise computing models.

Despite what some of our competitors are saying, they are looking at x86-based servers and standardized systems to streamline their operations. The bottom line: they are looking for efficiency within their enterprise.

Let's hear what Steve has to say:

Last summer, Lionel wrote a post about our web-based tool that we call System Analyzer.  We designed to take the guesswork out of system upgrades.

So, why re-visit?  Because I continue to get questions from customers on the topic, and because I recently stumbled across a video from YouTube user knuckleblaster.  I wanted to say thanks young tech enthusiast who took the time to upload a video to teach other customers about it.  Here is the video.

To run it, click on the Analyze System button pictured below.  This will take you to www.dell.com/upgrades.  From that page, you have two options: Run the Dell System Analyzer or you can enter the service tag number for your system.  The tool scans your system and presents you with hardware upgrade options that will keep your system running at peak performance. 

I recently tried the System Analyzer tool myself and time how long it took from hitting the button to retrieving the information.  My system took 35 seconds.  The system analyzer told me everything from how many slots of memory I had left, and how much memory I was already using, to what products would be compatible for my Dell.  Everything from hard drives, memory, power supplies, motherboards, cooling systems, networking, displays, mice, software and other laptop accessories, like carrying cases.

All of the System Analyzer's suggestions are specific to my Dell. It's like having a virtual service provider in my computer.  Try it out, save yourself some time and no hourly service charge or tip necessary.  IN fact, think of the System Analyzer tool as Dell's "tip" for you. 

If you are looking to upgrade your existing machine, I hope you find it useful. Thanks again to knuckleblaster for taking the time to teach others about how to use the System Analyzer.  We appreciate it!

Wanna turn off the lights? Seriously. Everybody’s doing it.

Maybe I should explain.

Back in 2007 the city of Sydney, Australia, started something called “Earth Hour.” On a specified night at a specified time, 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for an hour. They did it to show that our energy resources are limited, that our decisions matter, and that our actions can make a difference – not just for an hour, of course, but all the time.

People all over the world paid attention.

In 2008, 50 million people switched off their lights for an hour worldwide. Global landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and Rome’s Colosseum stood in darkness.

This year we’ll see (or not see, depending on how you look at it) even more landmarks and people flicking the switch in solidarity. The Acropolis? Dark for Earth Hour. The Empire State building? Dark. The Sphinx and Great Pyramids of Giza? Lights out for them as well.

Edward Norton is the US ambassodor for Earth Hour. He recently discussed it with Larry King in this video:

As of March 12, 1,189 cities and towns across 80 countries were committed to going dark for an hour. To keep up with how Earth Hour is progressing, you can follow @EarthHour on Twitter, or keep up with Earth Hour tweets by following this Earth Hour search on Twitter. Also, if you're compelled to share Earth Hour-related videos, you can share your YouTube videos to this Earth Hour group.

So, the question is “What will you be doing this Saturday night, March 28, at 8:30?” Well, here at Dell and ReGeneration.org we’re encouraging people to be home with their lights out – or out watching their city’s skyline go dark. We’re even going dark in Dell facilities around the world. 

We also want to encourage you to support our friends at Climate Savers Computing Initiative by pledging to set power management on your computer (yes, you can still use your computer during Earth Hour if you must – just do it with your power management set, OK?).

So, what do you say? Wanna turn off the lights this Saturday?