Around the Globe

There's been a lot of buzz in the blogosphere since Google announced the Chrome OS last week. For those of you who didn't follow the discussions, the Chrome OS is an experience-targeted cloud OS that has the potential to push the boundaries and definition of the alternative operating environment. According to Google's blog post, the Chrome OS is specifically targeted towards the netbook class device. While there's still lots of questions about the OS, the idea has potential. I think it will be interesting to see what the interaction between Chrome OS and Android will ultimately be within the cloud. Given that Google has made it clear that the Chrome OS will be available in the second half of 2010, there's still a lot of time to see how this will develop. As with most new technology, Dell plans to evaluate the Chrome OS and other alternative operating environments, like we've done in the past. Luckily (for me!), Dell enjoys a great relationship with Google. As we have more details to share on the topic, we'll do it here.

Alternative operating systems, continue to evolve, flourish and prosper. Over the last 18 months, we have seen Linux and its derivatives make their way into the hands of consumers (hooray!!). We have also seen smartphone and MID operating systems such as Android and the Palm Pre's WebOS showing signs of enthusiasm and prosperity.  It's a wonderful time to witness and participate in such a renaissance within the PC and small device industry.  These alternative operating environments are truly "different" from the traditional Windows platform - they don't attempt to simply "mimic" Windows.

Alternative operating system provide users with an focused experience: highlighting a particular feature - such as web browsing, email, or media consumption. Within Dell, we call this an "experience-targeted" platform as it represents the primal focus of the alternative environment:  direct and focus the user towards a specific set of features (or "experiences" in marketing terms). Most alternative operating environments also come with this "focused" feature.  As is typically the case, these alternative operating environments are not Windows compatible - they do not run the standard Windows/Win32 applications that are so common. This can be seen as a disadvantage. However, these alternative operating environments attempt to address this shortcoming by focusing their feature set with a self-directed experience: entice and direct the user to its strengths.

Moblin is the next evolutionary step of the traditional Linux environment where focus on smaller devices and small screens is a requirement. It takes a different approach to its user experience from either Dell's current offering or Ubuntu Netbook Remix by further simplifying the self-directedness of the desktop - no user guide should be needed to learn how to use Moblin. Additionally, Moblin replaces some of the traditional Linux applications, such as media players, browsers, etc..., with equivalent versions that have been specifically optimized to align with this new design behavior/look and feel of Moblin. Applications take up the entire desktop in Moblin (because screen real estate is a premium in these kinds of devices).  Hence, applications that are optimized around that behavior provide a greater user experience over the traditional Linux version of the same application.  Moblin continues this theme by providing a new simplified network connectivity manager - one that again, looks and behaves like a more integrated application within the Moblin desktop. Like our Linux offering on Mini netbooks and UNR, simplicity is a key design element in Moblin. Users of Moblin see a targeted feature set (browsing, social networking/email, media) and the entire Moblin desktop directs and focuses the user on those features.  Dell is very interested in Moblin at present and is working very closely with its key Moblin partners (Intel and Canonical) investigating potential offerings.

Add this all up, and down the road this means that customers will have all kinds of choices on the OS side. If you're into open source options, I predict lots of exciting times ahead for us all!

Since I blogged about our Driver Download Manager functionality last week, some customers like mattroberts, nigel1999 and terryko and others made it clear they did not want to have to download an app to get driver downloads. To be clear, the Driver Download Manager was meant to be optional.

Customers like kittykat21589 rightly pointed out there was a bug in our opt out functionality. Yesterday we made a configuration change on the site to fix this. The opt out to download via Browser without the Driver Download Manager is now working correctly. We apologize for any frustration this has caused and will be closely monitoring the site over the coming days to ensure it continues to work as expected.

Here's the option you should see the next time you download a file from support.dell.com:

And for Firefox users like keepsloanweird who reported that the Driver Download Manager app doesn't work properly, take a look at my comment for clarification. The short answer is that the app requires both Microsoft .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1 and the Microsoft .NET Assistant 1.1 to be installed.

It was never our intention to force users to install and use the Driver Download Manager. Although some of you may choose not to use the Driver Download Manager I would hope that at some stage you may give it a try to see the benefits it can provide.

Thanks again to our customers for the direct and honest feedback. If you have more to share on the topic, let me know with a comment below.

Today we're unveiling a new solution we feel is pretty special and embodies everything we wanted to achieve when we decided to restructure the way Public Sector customers' needs are addressed by Dell.  At the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) International Policing Exhibition and Summer Conference (ACPO-APA) we'll be announcing the Dell Digital Forensics Solution - a collaboration between customers and specialist partners to help solve one of the biggest challenges facing police and security forces today - managing digital evidence.

The amount of digital evidence that needs to be reviewed is growing at a huge rate, and this is putting forensic experts under pressure to analyse data quickly and accurately to help secure arrests and convictions.  It makes perfect sense that this is happening, when you consider how entwined in our lives digital devices are - why would criminals be any different? In the UK you have 28 days in which to get your case together before a suspect must be released, which isn't a lot of time to look through what might be terabytes of data in a single case.  The average backlog of data awaiting forensic analysis in the UK is 18-24 months across the 43 police constabularies, according to comments made by the Metropolitan Police Central e-Crime Unit at InfoSec.

Working with support from AccessData, EMC, Intel, Oracle, Symantec, VEGA and others, Dell has developed a new data centre approach to digital forensics that simplifies the entire process, improves the efficiency of sharing and administering data across analyst teams, and supports strict evidence handling guidelines.  This is very different to the way many systems work now, where data is analysed in isolation on a workstation with little protection from malicious code and no ability for analysts to collaborate on the same evidence. We've taken our experience in servers, the cloud and high performance computing, and created a solution which we believe will transform the way digital evidence is processed, leading to quicker forensic analysis and criminal convictions.

Our mission at Dell is to ensure that we combine our 25-year history of driving affordable, accessible IT with an intimate understanding of what different parts of the public sector need to deliver solutions that are green, simplified and secure.  By simplify we mean cut costs and conquer complexity, ultimately leading to customers reclaiming time, money and people. The Digital Forensics solution really embodies this, and through our partner network we've been able to bring best of breed and insight to the project, to produce something that really is greater than the sum of its parts.

There's any number of studies that show that consumers trust product opinions from friends, family members and other customers more than they trust what a company says about its own products.. Since 2006, we've added the Ratings and Reviews functionality in multiple countries and added the ability to share them in other social media sites. Many customers have told us that these reviews are helpful during the shopping process.

Since the early days, we've amassed thousands of reviews written by people around the world, sharing thoughts about what was great, what wasn't ideal and so on.   We appreciate those who take the time to write reviews, and want to encourage more people to submit new ones. So if you're one of our customers who have read reviews or used them to compare products, we're hoping you will take that next step and write one! Now it's the right time to finally grab the old pen and paper (or keyboard in this case) and put your words to use for a chance to win.  Share your opinions on anything and everything from the Studio 17 to the Wasabi Photo Printer or even non-Dell products that we sell through the Electronics and Accessories area on Dell.com.  Give us your thoughts, photos or submit a video review for all of the dell community to see.  

From July 2 - September 4, everyone that submits a review will be entered for a chance to win one of three $500 gift cards.  Write as many reviews as you want on each Dell product you own to increase your chance to win.  And remember, when you're writing your review, think about all the things you wanted to know about the product and tell people how you use your product in real life.  

To rate a product, you can visit www.dell.com/ratings or go to any of our product pages and sign in to write a review.  Dell uses your reviews in action across all of Dell.com.  The most useful reviews are selected to be Customer Spotlight Reviews  which many customers have told us help them when they are making up their minds on what to buy.  We want to put you and your review in the spotlight! Share your pictures, your stories, your thoughts with the community not only just for a chance to win but for a chance to be heard by all at the Dell community!

For more information, check out our official rules for our Ratings & Reviews Sweepstakes.

I would like to share some details on an important update for the Drivers & Downloads application on Support.Dell.com. Recently, we completed the launch of the new Dell Driver Download Manager. This new functionality, which is available globally across all of Support.Dell.com, has been created to improve your experience when downloading files from Dell.  

The big change you will see when using the new Driver Download Manager is an improvement in download speed. The time taken to download files using the Driver Download Manager is a lot shorter, up to a 30-40% reduction, depending on your internet connectivity.

The Driver Download Manager also offers a number of improvements to help you through the process of downloading files from Support.Dell.com. You can now pause and resume your downloads. The progress of your download can be saved via an icon on your desktop which you can restart at any time. You can also restart your download should your internet connection get cut off in the middle of a download, as the Driver Download Manager saves your progress ensuring that you don't lose out.

To use the Driver Download Manager (Fig 1 above), you will need to complete a once off install of the application on your system.

Please take some time to visit your local Drivers & Downloads site and check out the Driver Download Manager. Hopefully you will find this new functionality useful and that it helps improve your download experience. I look forward to your feedback.

Editor's Note:  Eoghan has posted an updated blog post at this link.   To make sure everyone gets the newest information possible we're turning off comments to this post.  Comments are still welcome on the newer blog post, so please click on the link above to find the new post.