Dell enters smartphone business in India

Dell today launched two new smartphones in the Indian market. These phones, called XCD28 and XCD35, run on Android 2.1 platform.
Both these phones have specially been designed for emerging markets and have been launched first in India.
Dell has said its target group for the smartphones is both the youth as well as to office-going folk.
Mahesh Bhalla, general manager, consumer and small-medium businesses, Dell India, said that “These phones are powerful enough to handle all shorts of tasks. We will look at selling them to corporates for different use cases like, sales force automation, CRM and ERP etc. Health and education are other areas for which we will look at developing applications.”
When asked about marketing strategy, Bhalla said, “I would like to grow through word of mouth but initially we will have mass media campaigns.”
The company is also planning to upgrade to Android 2.2 once it is available. Bhalla said, “We are looking at a wide range of devices including a Windows Phone 7 device. We have done a lot of customisation based on the requirements of emerging market.”
At a recent international event, Michael Dell had showcased Venue Pro smartphone running on the Windows Phone 7 platform, and the company is expected to launch the device soon.
Michael had said at the event, “Dell is working on CDMA and 4G phones to complement the initial range of GSM devices.”
Dell has also announced that it will extend the ‘advanced exchange warranty’ launched for the Dell Streak to these phones. Under this warranty, customers will be able to exchange phones with manufacturing defects for new ones, without incurring any cost.
Bhalla said, “Under this new warranty scheme, a customer will not have to wait for his phone to be repaired. He will get a replacement for any hardware defect. If it’s a software defect, it will be rectified on the spot or a replacement will be offered.”
The two phones launched today feature a Qualcomm chipset clocked at 600 MHz. Both phones are 3G ready and come with WiFi, Bluetooth, A-GPS, 3.2 mega Pixel cameras, and Active Sync technology.