Not Getting It
I think Dell's head of marketing doesn't really grasp the tablet space. While saying that the iPad "isn't ready for business", he explained:
“An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you’ll be at $1500 or $1600; that’s double of what you’re paying," he claimed. "That’s not feasible.”
There are so many things wrong with that. First off, you don't need a mouse at all; that's the whole point of the touch interface. You navigate these devices differently. That's mostly true for keyboards as well, although, if you do decide on a keyboard, the rollup travel kind you would get is around $30. The case is also in that ballpark. Where he gets "double the cost" is beyond me; maybe he drank too much Australian beer.
What this tells me is that Dell sees tablets the same way that Microsoft does - as smaller PC's. That's not what they are at all, and seeing them that way is why Microsoft - which got into the tablet space very early - made no headway at all. If Dell looks at them that way, expect their entries to fail with a loud thud as well.
