Another comment from Michael Dell on Ideastorm.
IdeaStorm submitted by jmxz
Jun 30
It's been well over a year since Micheal Dell commented on IdeaStorm. It was nice to see his comments, since that made it look like IdeaStorm was really valued all the way up in Dell. Starbuck's CEO has posted more recently than that on their ideastorm, and some of Dell's competitors are very open in interacting with their users on their blogs many times a month.
Back in March 2007, when Michael Dell made his first first comment on IdeaStorm he gave the quite encouraging comment: Thank you to all of our community for your ideas and suggestions! We are listening and learning a great deal and changing our company with your ideas. But for the past year there's no sign that he cares anymore. Just so we know this site still matters to Dell, have Michael Dell come by at least once a year and comment on the ten highest voted ideas so we know the votes mean something too. Even if his only comment is "I can't comment on this one", we'd at least know he's aware of what the top voted ideas are.
230
Train your tech support team about what featurs your BIOS's support.
Service and Support submitted by jmxz
Jun 26
Quoting a comment in under a different idea:
I just purchased an XPS M1530... The laptop came wih bios A07 installed. I installed [tried Oracle VM, but the BIOS didn't support the CPU's virtualization feature]. I upgraded to A08. ... I just want t encourage Dell to provide virtualization and mark it's availability clearly. Neither Dell support or the Best Buy Geek Squad could tell me anything about what the bios supported.
C'mon. Tech Support should be able to answer such questions. If a Dell customer who bought one of your XPS's can't answer questions like that, where do you expect them to turn? (my guess: Apple)
170
How about another update on the highest voted ideas.
IdeaStorm submitted by jmxz
Jun 19
It seems many of the highest voted Ideas are the most neglected by Dell
Pre-Installed OpenOffice | alternative to MS Works & MS Office (currently with 138079 points) has been one of the top-5-highest-voted Ideas on IdeaStorm since Feb 07. It has no "Status" regarding whether it's in progress, or rejected; and the only comments from Dell were just one employee's personal opinion.
No OS Preloaded (with 85050 points), has also been one of the top-5-highest for over a year. It's status is the same partial implementation (available on a couple models) that has been true from Dell since long before IdeaStorm was around (2004, if I recall). Clearly the Idea is popular because people want to see it on more models. Rather than just labeling the Idea as "partially implemented as always" - could you give some update on the progress on this Idea.
Firefox instead of IE (with 115593 points) has also been a top-5 idea for over a year. With the recent release of FireFox 3 - along with great press from the technology and business industry alike, another update on this idea would be very welcome. The recent Forbes article Why Firefox Matters clearly sees Firefox as the industry leader, and Wall Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal explicitly states that Firefox 3.0 Is the Best Browser for Web. Surely Dell would want to offer the best for their customers, no?
630
24 Core, 48GB clusters can be custom-built for $3500. Idea: Sell one.
Sales Strategies submitted by jmxz
Jun 16
Michael Tiemann (VP Red Hat)'s blog has an interesting article about a 24 Core, 48 GB RAM, 400W power cluster.
As the article mentions, this cluster compares very well against a popular model Apple:
Compared with an 8-core/16GB RAM MacPro (a favorite in the 3D community), this computer has 3x the CPU/RAM with approximately the same thermal profile, and cost $3500 in parts, which is about half the cost of the much less powerful Mac Pro
Idea: ... Dell - sell these and market them directly against the 2X more expensive and 3X less powerful Apple.
180
Advertise your Linux boxes as "Green"
Advertising and Marketing, Environment, Linux submitted by jmxz
Jun 9
Network World has an interesting article here " tests show that Red Hat Linux pulls as much as 12% less power than Windows 2008 on identical hardware" With all the media excitement surrounding Green and Environmental issues, you could advertise how Green Dell is even in it's software selections. If Dell ships 50_000_000 computers per year, and these computers live an average of 4 years each , and each computer uses 100W, it seems Dell could save the world
50_000_000 computers *
4 years each * 365 days/year * 24 hours/day *
100 Watts / computer *
0.12 (percent savings using Red Hat)
== 21024000000000 Watts
which is a number too big for me to count. Is that 21 Tera-watt-hours? Even if my math's off by 10000 Dell could save many giga-watt-hours. And that's only one year's production.
180
Let your customers choose which Internet Search company you sell them to.
Dell, Dell Web Site submitted by jmxz
Jun 2
In some ways you (and HP) clearly see see Google and Microsoft as the real "customers" (who are always right), and see Dell Users as the "product" you're selling -- in much the same way TV companies see their audience as the product they sell to advertisers.
One obvious example is where you and HP sell your users to the highest bidding search engine at the possible expense of the user experience of Dell users.
I realize that a couple years back, Google called you "its secret weapon" against Microsoft and described how they were "ecstatic" about partnering with you. And I realize that you and Google made some slightly annoying error pages presumably to make even more money from Google at the expense of your users.
It seems this bidding for Dell Users is heating up again: Today I see that microsoft signs [a new] search distribution deal with HP presumably to inflict similar annoying things on their customers.
Ideas:
Idea 1. Rather than sell all your users to the highest bidder - make a deal with both of the search companies, and let your customer choose which subsidy they want when ordering.
Default Search Engine
[_] Use Google as a default search engine - save $5
[_] Use Microsoft Live search as a default search engine - save $30.
[X] Use Yahoo as a default search engine - $0
Idea 2. Note that in the proposed form in Idea 1 you pass this subsidy on to your customer. This way people buying Dells will feel more like the real customer and less like the product you're selling to Google and Microsoft.
100
Hot-swappable laptop batteries.
Laptop Power submitted by jmxz
May 31
I'd like to be able to swap the battery on my laptop without having to turn it off or hibernate it. It seems you could do this by putting a large capacitor or tiny internal battery that could provide power for the 30 seconds or so it takes to switch to a spare battery. Another way you might be able to do this is instead of having one big battery in each laptop, have 2 small ones instead; and you could swap them one at a time.
If it was really easy to swap them I'd probably buy more spare batteries; so I could go most of the day without plugging in the laptop (and then I'd want an external charger so I could charge them all overnight).
750
Improve your high-end (>$1000) PCs - Apple's doing well there.
Sales Strategies submitted by jmxz
May 23
Fortune Magazine this month has an interesting article on Apple 2.0
Report: Apple’s market share of PCs over $1,000 hits 66%
...
Mac Q1 '08 Retail Share ... All Desktops: 14%
Mac Q1 '08 Retail Share ... All Notebooks: 14%
Mac Q1 '08 Retail Share ... $1,000+ Desktops: 70%
Mac Q1 '08 Retail Share ... $1,000+ Notebooks: 64%
...
Still, Apple’s share of the $1,000-plus retail market was less than 18% in January 2006 according to NPD. By September 2007, it had grown to more than 57%. And in the first quarter of 2008 it hit a record 66%.
I imagine this >$1000 segment is more profitable than the budget segment too. Wonder what Dell needs to do to catch Apple here. It'd be interesting to see if people have good specific places Dell needs to improve compared to Apple on >$1000 machines in the comments..
140
Something like Asus's "Splashtop" fast-booting secure web-surfing environment.
Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Desktops and Laptops submitted by jmxz
May 19
Asus is putting their
Splashtop environment in all their new motherboards.
Splashtop is described by DeviceVM as a "secure web-surfing environment", and is embedded on motherboards so that it can be booted within seconds, as an alternative to booting up a full operating system. ...
"In response to great user feedback, our plan is to proliferate Express Gate across our entire motherboard-product portfolio, ...
"Consumers want to turn their PCs on and off like any other appliance"
I'd very much like to simply turn my Dell's on and off like any other appliance, and be able to instantly launch a web browser without even having to wait for a hard disk to spin up.
330
Let Home customers know it's OK to buy from the Business section and vice versa.
Advertising and Marketing, Sales Strategies, Small Business submitted by jmxz
May 7
From a conversation with Dell's robert_p, under a different Idea it seems that "Home" customers are welcome to buy from Dell's "Small & Medium Business" section, and Dell's "small and/or medium business" customers are welcome to buy from Dell's "Home & Home Office" section.
This is very useful since often computers in the "Small Business" section may be more appropriate for home use (the Latitude's light weight and reliability make it a great college computer); and often computers in the "Home" section may be more appropriate for office use (where the better graphics options in Home are valuable for graphical visualization). It's also useful because an identically-spec'd system may be cheaper the Home Section one week, and then be cheaper in the Small Business section the next.
I think many Dell Business and Home customers are missing out on the best deals and failing to find machines that meet their needs because the home user's are afraid of falsely claiming to be a business and because the business customers are afraid of falsely claiming to by buying systems for personal use.
So a few ideas:
1. Assuming robert_p's right in saying Home Customers are welcome to buy from Small Business - add links to the Home product pages saying "If you don't see what you need here, check out Dell's Small Business section. You're welcome to buy those for Home use too".
2. Assuming robert_p's right in saying Small Business are welcome to buy from the Home section - add links to the Small Business product pages saying "If you don't see what you need here, check out Dell's Home section. You're welcome to buy those for Business Use too".
3. Extrapolating - if it's also OK for Home an Small Biz customers to buy from Dell's "Large Business" and "Government, Education, Healthcare & Life Sciences" section, add those links too.
4. Make a price comparison engine that compares the prices of an identically spec'd system from each of Dell's sections so I don't have to manually dig through all of your painful to navigate website sections to compare Home vs Small Business myself.
700
Heavier weight Ubuntu images.
Linux submitted by jmxz
May 1
Ubuntu has a very large number of optional packages - spread through i's "main", "restricted", "universe" and "multiverse" package repositories - and including both source and binary distributions. AFAIK, many if not most of these packages are not on the Ubuntu disk images Dell ships, nor on the included Ubuntu DVD.
This proposal is not to "pre-install" these packages; but to have a copy of all the ".deb" (installer) files of all these packages - source and binary; on the hard disk; so that no matter what Ubuntu package a Dell Ubuntu Customer wants to install, he can install it straight from the hard disk and not have to wait for it to download over the network.
Hard disk space is cheap - and for users who don't want it, it could easily be documented that they're free to "rm -rf /opt/apt_repository" if they want to free up disk space after installing whatever packages they wanted.
40
Pacifist Patriot computers.
Sales Strategies submitted by jmxz
Apr 30
This is a followup to the two "patriot" ideas from earlier today.
Both were focused on the military aspects of patriotism: "camo with the end users choice of military logos" ... "charity that specifically supports ... soldiers and their families". While those focused on the military, there are many ways of showing patriotism including non-violent ones.
If you do a military-patriotism-computer - please also do a non-military-patriot-computer too.
This would be just like the other ideas, but change
"choice of military logs" to "choice of non-military, government logos"
and change
"charity that supports...soldiers and their families" to "charity that supports non-soldiers and their families".
-230
The "Patriot" 2.0. Made in the customer's country.
Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Laptops submitted by jmxz
Apr 30
This is a variation of today's earlier "The_Patriot_American_Made Idea.
We live in a global marketplace with a global economy; and note that International Growth is extremely important for Dell. In 2006, Dell saw growth in Asia as sales in Korea, India and China rose by 54%, 40% and 29%, compared to I think 6% growth total sales. Dell spoke of 74 percent growth in Brazil. International sales continue to be a strong growth driver for Dell, and rather than any single-country-specific initiative, Dell should see how such projects could apply globally.
This idea is very similar to the earlier one linked, and the submitter worded it well, so I'll put quotes around the original text I'm copying.
Many Dell customers "are still very proud to be AMERICAN." - but even more Dell customers are proud to be citizens of whatever their respective country may be. " I would very much like to see Dell produce a laptop called the "Patriot". This machine should be" made in the country that the customer is a citizen of", and it should have a couple of really cool and patriotic color options.
color option 1 - camo with the end users choice of military logos
color option 2 - the "Country of the Customer's citizenship"
I see this type of laptop as an opportunity for Dell to give back a little to the people and the countr"ies" that made it possible to be DELL.
I would also like to see a portion of every patriot laptop sold dedicated to a charity that specifically supports wounded soldiers and their families" -- perhaps soldiers from the country of whom the Customer is a citizen; or perhaps charities supporting wounded soldiers and families from all countries in which Dell does business.
20
Empower your India customer support reps just as much as you do your US ones.
Dell submitted by jmxz
Apr 25
Quoting a Dell press relesase written about here
Dell's new premium support service ...new fee-based offering ... support team in North America ...are empowered to address a comprehensive range of issues across the breadth of Dell's product line.
While I'm all for Dell offering fee-based support in [country of your choice] for people who'd rather choose products for nationalistic reasons rather than best-value-for-dollar - I find it a bit scary that you go out of your way to mention that this new team is "empowered to address a comprehensive range of issues". Is this implying (or, worse, acknowledging) that your India team is no longer empowered in such a way? That sounds disappointing, since previously I've had great support from your India teams. I'd hate to think that they're being disempowered just so have have a reason to upsell people to this new fee-based offering.
100
Let us rate Ideas on a scale of 1-10 instead of just up/down.
IdeaStorm submitted by jmxz
Apr 24
Most of the Ideas on IdeaStorm are good. Few are great. So very often I find myself reading an idea and thinking "yeah, that's kinda good and it'd be nice if Dell did this; but I sure hope it wouldn't distract them from the even better ideas".
Rather than just voting up or down and idea, how about change the voting system so everyone can rate an idea from 1-10.
210
Evaluate using Apple's internally at Dell.
Simplify IT submitted by jmxz
Apr 18
And before voting this down, read about IBM's fascinating pilot program for using Macs internally and the advantages they're finding.
IBM’s Research Information Services launched an internal pilot program designed to study the possibility of moving significant numbers of employees to the Mac platform. The study has already found an enthusiastic response from participants and is helping to drive Mac support for IBM’s business applications. ... IBM is actively working to move away from its dependence upon Microsoft Windows and toward a heterogeneous cross-platform future.
The pilot program document outlined a series of reasons for evaluating MacBook Pro laptops as a replacement for the Windows-based ThinkPads currently in use inside the company:
# Alternative to Microsoft Windows
# Less prone to security issues
# Widely used in the academic world with which Research has close ties
# Many new hires are more comfortable with the Mac and lately asking for it
# Growing Mac community in Research and within IBM that finds the development environment on Mac more convenient
# Growing acceptance of the Mac as a consumer and business oriented client platform
The first phase of the pilot program ran from October 2007 through January 2008.
...
Of the 22 of 24 who responded, 18 said that the Mac offered a “better or best experience” compared to their existing computer, one rated it “equal or good,” and three said the Mac offered a “worse experience.”
Surely you at Dell want to give your employees a "better or best experience". And if you can learn something from it, and bring some of those "better or best experiences" to Dell computers too - it would be good for your customers as well.
-300
Carefully follow the situation of Psystar selling MacOS computers without Apple's consent.
Dell, Operating Systems, Sales Strategies submitted by jmxz
Apr 15
Everyone pretty much knows that Apple's been eating Dell's lunch recently. There might be many factors, but I still suspect that Vista taking profits away from Dell, and Vista stinks in general are two important factors.
A small computer company called
Psystar is making the news this week selling Apple MacOS computers without Apple's consent. According to Information Week, a Psystar is a much better deal than an Apple. In particular, a Psystar at $804.99. A similar, Apple-branded computer would cost more than $2,000".
I think Dell could take a big chunk out of Apple's sales if Dell sold a similar computer. I'd certainly trust a Dell more than a Psystar; and I'd much rather pay $804.99 to Dell (heck, even $1804) than $2000 to Apple.
So the Idea is to watch how aggressively Apple's legal department kills Psystar; and if such a legal attack seems survivable with Dell legal (who seems to have too much time on their hands anyway), sell similar systems yourselves.
80
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