As it gears up for the release of its Windows Phone 7-powered Venue Pro smartphones on Monday, Dell is taking a cue from partner Microsoft and giving out thousands of the devices to its employees.
The news is a public blow to Research In Motion, whose BlackBerry devices were favored by the Texas-based Dell but, according to a Dell executive, may soon end up on eBay.
‘Kicking Them Out’
The Venue Pro, to be carried by T-Mobile, is intended to appeal to business users and packs the mobile version of Microsoft’s Office suite of productivity software as well as access to Microsoft Exchange.
Dell’s chief financial officer, Brian Gladden, told The Wall Street Journal Thursday that the company is phasing out BlackBerrys to reduce costs by eliminating the monthly fee for access to RIM’s servers for each device. The move also encourages Dell’s business clients to adopt the Venue Pro. “Clearly, in this decision we are competing with RIM, because we’re kicking them out,” Gladden told the Journal.
A RIM executive quickly fired back, telling the paper that Dell won’t save money because of the costs of implementing the switch, and because, in RIM’s view, BlackBerry phones are more efficient at handling data.
Last week Microsoft announced it is giving out Phone 7 devices to 89,000 employees in an apparent bid to get them quickly into public view, although it didn’t specify which phones. In addition to Dell, Phone 7 devices are being made by HTC, Samsung and LG.
Feeling the Heat
A survey this week by comScore of the smartphone market between June and September found a drop of 2.8 percentage points in the use of BlackBerry devices, although the company still leads the market with a 37.3 percent share, while Google’s Android-based devices surged 6.5 percentage points from 14.9 to 21.4 percent. Microsoft’s pre-Phone 7…