Dell has taken a bold step in its bid to market its newest smartphone as the alternative to the BlackBerry mobile phone – the company will be swapping its staff’s RIM handsets for the Dell Venue Pro device.
Currently Dell has 25,000 employees with a BlackBerry, and all will be given a Venue Pro instead. The remaining staff (about 71,000) will also get the Dell phone but only with voice plans rather than voice and data plans. Eventually, staff will also be offered Android smartphones in addition to this Windows Phone 7-based one.
This move will save Dell about 25% of its mobile communications expenses.
The mobile phone switch will begin next week, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Dell’s chief financial officer, Brian Gladden said: “Clearly in this decision we are competing with RIM, because we’re kicking them out.”
The Venue Pro has a design not dissimilar to the BlackBerry Torch, featuring both a touchscreen display and full QWERTY. The high-end device has a 4.1 inch AMOLED display with a Gorilla glass screen. Venue Pro deals launch in the UK on Monday 8 November. The device runs on the Microsoft WP7 OS and so comes with an array of business features capable of supporting the needs of Dell’s employees.
However, RIM has announced the move as nothing more than a publicity stunt. Senior vice president of corporate marketing at RIM said: “We find it highly unlikely that they will actually save any money with this move and far more likely they were looking for a little free publicity. Consider all the hard and soft costs of purchasing, deploying and supporting new devices and new software inside a company.”
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