Dell colors its laptop world
SAN FRANCISCO — Business computer-maker Dell plans to start aggressively courting consumers Tuesday— in part with new laptops colored flamingo pink. — The No. 2 PC maker has always offered some consumer computers. But they tended to be offshoots …
Context & Ripple Effects
June has been a bruising month for Dell's public image: the company forced a takedown of a former sales manager's tell-all on Consumerist in mid-June, then issued a public apology days later for what it attributed to acting before thinking. Against that backdrop, the flamingo-pink laptop launch reads less like a styling experiment and more like a deliberate repositioning of the No. 2 PC maker, whose consumer machines have historically been offshoots of its business lines.
The consumer courtship is already visible across the portfolio: the LED-backlit XPS m1330 ultraportable revealed earlier this month targets style-conscious buyers, unlocked Nokia handsets appeared in Dell's online store, and the site now carries televisions made by other manufacturers even as Dell denied plans to exit its own LCD TV line.
First-order effects
- Consumers gain design-first choices from Dell — pink laptops alongside the configurable, LED-lit XPS m1330 — marking a shift from spec-sheet enterprise marketing to lifestyle branding.
Second-order effects
- By stocking third-party TVs on its own site while denying an exit from TV manufacturing, Dell edges toward becoming a merchandise storefront, putting its house-brand electronics in direct competition with partners' goods on the same page.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, PCs are marketed like phones or MP3 players — where color, finish, and retail presence decide purchases — eroding the build-to-order, business-gray identity that built Dell.
The trend: PC makers are recasting computers as fashion objects, with Dell trading its direct-sales, corporate heritage for color and consumer reach.