Dell ditches BlackBerry in favor of Windows Phone 7

By on Nov 5, 2010 at 9:41 AM
mobile November 5, 2010

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Dell CFO Brian Gladden announced that the company would be replacing current employee phones with its own devices. According to Gladden, approximately 25,000 Dell employees will soon ditch their BlackBerry smartphones in favor of company issued Dell Venue Pro handsets. The Windows Phone 7-powered Venue Pro won’t be employees’ only option, however, as Dell will also soon offer Android devices to its employees. Beyond obvious reasons for the switch β€” Dell competes with BlackBerry maker RIM now that it is in the cell phone business β€” Gladden also claims the company will save roughly 25% on communication costs by eliminating the need for BlackBerry servers. Dell’s push to move people from BlackBerry devices to its own line of handsets isn’t just internal, either; the company plans to offer services to its business customers within the next two weeks that will assist them in transitioning from BlackBerry phones to Dell’s own devices. As to what Dell plans to do with 25,000 soon to be unused BlackBerrys, Gladden joked that the company is toying with the idea of selling them on eBay.

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  • FanBoyCawkRawk

    Can anyone explain why haters are saying WP7 isn’t doing well when its not even available in the U.S. until next week? And how reports from Europe are stating that they sold out and is ‘doing better than expected’?

    Now, I’m not being a fanboy… the handsets sold out because the Euro providers thought it was going to flop and low-balled their inventory, then ran out of stock.

    Funny, all those Android fanboys got so many widgets and apps but can’t seem to google simple news reports. Ironic.

    • http://www.searingarrow.com AlienSix

      Why do you assume all of the “haters” to be Android fanboys?

    • Anon

      Can you explain why Windows 7 has been touted as the greatest thing ever when it’s not even available in the US until next week?

  • Guest

    yeahh fuck RIM!!

    • Visual Mofo

      So childish, yet so funny.

  • Anonymous

    Well nothing beats BES and its security features. Good luck Dell.

  • Anonymous

    Just to further confirm RIM is not only declining in the consumer market. BES Servers and CAL’s cost and it’s native if you run MS already, this will become a trend in this great depression where cost saving is king.

    • RealDeal

      This is why RIM released BES Express, it’s free, there are no CAL costs, and has way more power and control than AnctiveSync. Anyone that states BES and BES CAL costs savings as an ROI to switch to ActiveSync doesn’t know what they are talking about or are just making up stuff to build a ROI.

  • grrr

    I’d take a venue pro for my bb tour any day. Its a one sided trade.

  • Guest

    Dell is giving their employees free DELL phones, why is anyone surprised by this??? It’s common business sense!
    It has nothing to do with BB vs. Windows 7 despite BGR’s obviously misleading subject line.

    • Visual Mofo

      How doesn’t it make it BB vs. WP7? BB just got owned!

      To take out 25K phones, and replace them with WP7 phones, and shut down their BB Enterprise Server, says a shit load.

      You must be smoking stupid today.

      • lurch

        Guest wasn’t talking about BlackBerry vs. WP7 sales. He was talking about how Dell’s decision has nothing to do with comparing features and benefits of BB vs. WP7. From a business angle, it makes more sense to have your employees using your product than using another company’s product.

        You’re the one that hasn’t mastered the “PASS” portion of “puff, puff, pass” while smoking stupid.

      • Visual Mofo

        From a business standpoint, what your are doing is pinning BB to a wall, and shooting at it.

        From a business angle, this is called Death to RIM.

        It makes more sense as to how easily this makes RIM unfavorable to a company that can create its own phone.

        So yes, BB got owned. How? Well, if you’d stop smoking stupid, then I am sure you would be smart enough to see how.

      • Anon

        The headline should be “Dell ditches BlackBerry in favor of Dell phones” to give the real impact of the switch.

  • Jls

    I hope all those employees don’t need to copy and paste…Lol

  • keymaker

    Damn Rim is in big trouble. There’s rumors that Bank of America and Citigroup are testing and planning to support iOS and now dell also is planning to leave them, not good not good at all.

  • Geneshadd

    Rim is slosh digging there own grave iPhone,android,window phones are surpassing them in every way . All the blackberry fan boys can say what you want but the blackberry is limited to what it can do compared to other devices. By the way try the other devices before you make a stupid comment . I used blackberry for 4 years .

  • Securitywiz

    There is pros and cons to both platforms and each company just needs to weigh out their options. For us, sending a new employee a blackberry and activating it is way simpler than setting up a new user on a iPhone or Windows mobile device to sync their emails via owa.

    Again, functionality vs cost vs deployment vs management.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BHMB52ZFMATI5KS7D4JT6UU7NA Eric W

    I’d take a WinMobile’6′ phone over a BB anyday. Hell my old Treo750 was better than current blackberry phones.

    I wish WM7 well, more competition is good for us iOS and Droid users as well.

  • rederikus

    I guess that Dell get a good discount when buying their own products – hehe.

  • Steve

    At least Dell will finally have a decent product to sell, even if it is used BlackBerry’s.

  • http://twitter.com/kirkewilliams kirkewilliams

    God! That is a sexy phone!

  • Max

    And the dominos for RIM start falling….

  • http://twitter.com/bbunlock BlackBerry Unlocking

    They’ll be back. Just wait until people start getting the mobile BSOD.

  • Nightfox111

    Oh wait … let me cut and paste something with my windows mobile 7 phone…. ohhhh it can’t!!! even iphones can do that.

    As for Windows Office? it’s dead in 5 years… just need my BB with BIS to google apps. Only Microsoft product I”m using now is Windows 7 and that will be replace with my playbook.

    • Blather

      So your argument is that copy in paste which is coming in jan vs the iphone that took HOW long to add copy and paste? lol

  • http://twitter.com/livingbasehead Shelton

    Max, just like to point out that Dell employees switching from blackberry to a phone that DELL manufactures isnt really so ominous. its like the CEO of FORD driving a ford.. that doesnt mean that bentley and Ferrari are going under.

    • Anonymous

      Being a neutral website , you would have thought BoyGenius would at least include Blackberry’s response to the announcement, which was that “Dell was simply looking for publicity” in making the announcement.

      Dell makes their own phones that compete with blackberry and are offering services that will compete with blackberry and yet its somehow its a shocking news story that they won’t continue using blackberry?

  • kelvinscott

    In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Dell CFO Brian Gladden announced that the company would be

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