Dell's Rollins dismisses iPod as a 'fad'
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"Fads rage, and then they drop off," says Kevin Rollins. As for the Mac Mini, he says, it won't "turn the industry upside down."
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One would do wise to consider with great skepticism Apple&#39;s denials that it remains wholly uninterested in digital music players based on solid-state flash memory cards rather than hard drives.
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MacCentral - With the iPod leading the way for Apple Computer Inc.'s charge into the consumer market, NPD Group analyst Ross Rubin said the iPod is reaching iconic status. While the iPod Shuffle aims to openly compete with many other players in the MP3 market, the upcoming release of iLife '05 may quietly threaten products of third-party developers.
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Apple's digital music player becomes the latest amenity at swank hotels, and ups its status as a pop-culture icon. Photo: Preloaded iPod in your next hotel room?
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Dell Inc., battered by battery recalls and disappointing earnings, said Wednesday that Chairman Michael Dell will return to run the company he had built into one of the world's largest makers of personal computers. Dell's appointment is effective immediately. He replaces Kevin Rollins, who also resigned as a member of the board.
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After two weeks of hands-on testing, an iPod freak says Microsoft's music player just might give the Apple gadget a run for its money. Commentary by Leander Kahney.
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For the Wall Street Journal, Tim Hanrahan and Jason Fry write, &#147;In Monday&#146;s column, we predicted that the combination of the iPod&#146;s popularity and the increasing worry over viruses, security holes and spyware in Windows PCs will lead to the second coming of Apple Computer as a home-computing power. To say that struck a chord would be putting it mildly. Boy, did we ever get mail &#151; including a significant number of people who said that the iPod, Windows security concerns or a combination of the two had made them switch to a Mac or plan to do so.&#148; [Paid WSJ subscription required.] [Dec 23]
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Dell Inc DELL.O Chairman Michael   Dell threw his support behind Chief Executive Kevin Rollins on   Tuesday, a day after the computer maker canceled an analyst   meeting and suspended a buyback program amid an accounting   probe.
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Dell introduced two new music players yesterday, aiming to take a chunk from Apple&#39;s iPod market share. Marketed under the Dell DJ (Digital Jukebox) line of digital music players, one - the
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By Damon Darlin  Michael Dell has taken back the leadership of the computer company he founded, replacing Kevin Rollins after more than a year of mounting problems at Dell.  The company announced Wednesday that Rollins had resigned as chief executive and as a director.
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Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) wants a big piece of global sales of MP3 players and has launched a new device to take market share from Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). But it is doubtful that Dell will be successful any time soon.
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2004 is turning out to be the year of the iPod. Last week retailers reported that they're running short on the popular digital music players. This week brings news of novel ways that people are putting their iPods to work.
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Michael Dell replaced Kevin  Rollins as CEO of Dell Inc.  on Wednesday as the No. 2  PC maker struggles with missteps in the U.S. consumer market  and lost market share to Hewlett-Packard Co. .
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InfoWorld - After eight years at the company, Kevin Rollins was appointed president and CEO of the &#36;41.4 billion computer juggernaut Dell Computer last July. Many still think of Dell as a desktop supplier, but the company has become a powerhouse in server and notebooks as well and is making strong moves in the printer and storage markets.
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(InfoWorld) - In what can be seen as either a joke or a real attempt to get employees to give up Apple iPods in favor of the Zune MP3 player, the team at Microsoft that builds Zune has set up a bin at its headquarters so employees can drop in iPods they don't want to use anymore. A photo of the "iPod Amnesty Bin" , which has on it an image of a bitten green apple and the words "Bite me," has been posted on Flickr. From the looks of the photo, not many people have been willing to give up their iPods, though a few of the earlier versions of Apple Inc.'s popular media players were lying at the bottom of the bin. A user who calls himself "fimoculous" and identified himself in an e-mail as MSNBC.com employee Rex Sorgatz , posted the photo, and said he thought the bin was someone's idea of a joke, nothing more. MSNBC.com is a joint media venture between Microsoft and MSNBC. "My guess is someone at Zune thought it would be funny, that's all," he said. Sorgatz said he is an iPod user, but could be convinced to switch if he found a superior product. Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, also suspects the bin's placement is meant to be funny, as it would likely be in the Zune team's best interest to use the latest iPod devices for competitive purposes. Indeed, none of the iPods in the bin in the photo were current versions. "Most of the people [working on] Zune would want to have an iPod to keep track of the competition," he said. "On that team, they're all into digital music, so all of them probably have a bunch of players." The photo got numerous comments from Flickr users, who in general thought it was amusing, though some were less impressed than others by the joke. "Only someone stupid enough to buy a Zune would be equally stupid enough to not sell their discarded iPod on eBay," commented Ariel Waldman , (ariel_waldman on Flickr), a digital insights analyst at interactive marketing agency VML Inc. "That's funny," wrote another who goes by "Dr_Watso" on Flickr. " I was always amazed that people ... jumped on the iPod bandwagon, even though there are so many much better devices that cost a whole lot less." The Zune team is based at Microsoft's Bear Creek offices in Redmond, Washington, near the main campus. An Apple spokesman declined to comment. A spokesman for the Microsoft public relations agency that represents Zune said she could not reach anyone on the team for comment, but she suspects the bin is meant to be a joke or a "morale booster" for employees at Zune headquarters. Microsoft launched the Zune last November, but the device has done little to sap enthusiasm for the iPod, which remains a top seller in the hard-drive media-player market, according to marketing-research firm NPD. Still, Microsoft is ramping up its marketing efforts around Zune in the hopes it can drum up interest in the device. The company released a pink Zune earlier this month that is outselling Zunes in white and brown, according to the company, and also launched a new print advertising campaign to promote the pink Zune called "Sync Pink." Microsoft also introduced a new TV commercial that highlights the features of Zune that differentiate it from the iPod, such as wireless sharing and the FM radio tuner. Microsoft is leveraging the popularity of its Xbox game console to promote Zune as well. In light of the highly anticipated release of the "Halo 3" Xbox game later this year, Microsoft unveiled a limited edition, "Halo"-themed Zune that comes preloaded with "Halo" videos, soundtracks and trailers. The device will be offered exclusively at GameStop retail stores and on its online store beginning June 15. There already have been preorders for the device, Microsoft said.
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(InfoWorld) - Stock in Dell was rising Monday on news thatÂ founder Michael Dell plans to remain as CEO for several years, trim the number of managers reporting directly to him, and eliminate bonuses. "We have a tough couple of quarters ahead. We didn't get here overnight, and we won't fix things overnight either," Dell wrote in a memo to employees on Friday. "Last year ... we had great efforts but not great results. This is disappointing, and it is unacceptable." Dell pointed to several problems with the company, including an overgrown bureaucracy and operating expenses that had grown too fast. "We have great people ... but we also have a new enemy: bureaucracy, which costs us money and slows us down. We created it, we subjected our people to it, and we have to fix it!" Dell said. "I am asking each of you to look across your organizations and eliminate redundancies." On Monday, a corporate spokeswoman confirmed the authenticity of the memo, which had been leaked to media over the weekend. The company has been buffeted in recent days by the resignation of CEO Kevin Rollins last Wednesday,Â Michael Dell announcing he would take over that job, and the accusation inÂ a lawsuit by investorsÂ on Friday that 15 top executives had garnered millions of dollars by selling their stock after propping up the company's faltering revenue with secret payments from Intel. Even before those blows landed, Dell was wobbling on a threat by the Nasdaq stock exchange to drop its stock unless the company files its overdue quarterly earnings reports.Â Dell has delayed filing those numbers for the past two terms as it struggles to satisfy an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of its accounting practices. It is not yet clear if that investigation is related to the investors' charges that Dell hid payments by Intel in exchange for staying exclusively loyal to one brand of microprocessor in its PCs. When Michael Dell announced on Wednesday he would return to his position as CEO, the company was already in the midst of a reorganization plan that calls for $100 million in spending to improve the customer service practices that allow it to bypass retail stores with its famed "direct sales" business model. The company was also following Rollins' plan toÂ remake itself as "Dell 2.0,"Â trying to move beyond an enormousÂ notebook PC battery recall in August by focusing on industrial design, overseas factories, and a move to diversify its computers by using chips fromÂ AMD as well as those from Intel. In his Friday memo, Dell added new details to that strategy. He promised to turn around the company by focusing on the SMB sector, enterprise servers and storage, shorter design cycles for new products, and increased sales in emerging markets. He also made a few corporate changes, recalling Paul Bell from his job running the company's markets in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) to lead Dell's new Americas group, which includes the fast-growing SMB sector. Dell also created a "global operations" division to focus on manufacturing and procurement. "I remember what it's like to start a company. We're moving fast. There is no luxury of time. The competitors are fierce. The difference is this time we have many new assets and some hidden ones that can be brought out," he wrote. Dell did not describe the hidden assets he would use to rescue his company's prospects, but he hinted that Dell had enough resources to outspend its competition. AlthoughÂ Dell handed the title of world's largest PC vendor to HP this year, it is still a corporate colossus. "When I started back in 1984, it was just me. But now we are blessed to have an awesome team, many great assets, and $11 billion or so," Dell said. Â
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&quot;Apple&#39;s iPod has lately been subject to the Rumor of the Week,&quot; Rich Duprey writes for The Motley Fool. &quot;Gaming is the latest rumor to have attracted attention.