Dell's Irish customers will not experience delays with orders of its new Inspiron line of notebooks, which are available in eight different colours, despite production problems relating to paint causing delays to delivery of a similar line of notebook computers. John Collinsreports.
A Dell Ireland spokeswoman said the issue was specific to the ultra-portable Dell XPS M1330 and would not affect the widescreen Latitude models recently launched in Ireland. It now appears customers who have purchased Dell's new XPS M1330 may have to wait until October to receive their machines.
A note on Dell's Irish website says: "There currently is an extended delivery time of approximately six weeks on Dell XPS M1330 Notebooks."
In a recent blog posting, Alex Gruzen, senior vice-president for Dell's consumer product group, said one of the main issues was painting the notebook casings in large volumes. "There was no problem painting hundreds at a time," said Mr Gruzen, "but as we increased the volume, otherwise manageable factors like dust contamination caused our successful yields to decrease."
Dell has been attempting to introduce more consumer-friendly products in order to win back market share from HP, which last year replaced it as the world's best-selling PC brand.
Last September the company said it was creating new industrial design and usability teams which would be staffed by up to 60 designers.
"Unlike some of our competitors, we don't design products only to be cool," said Kevin Rollins, Dell's chief executive at the time. "We will have very cool products that best meet the needs of our customers."
Both the XPS M1330 and the new multi-coloured Inspiron line are a direct result of that strategy. Despite its success in the corporate market, Dell has always struggled to crack the consumer space.
Only about 15 per cent of its sales are to home users, but since the announcement of an investigation into its financial reporting it has stopped providing a detailed breakdown of sales to different market segments.
Separately DigiTimes, a Taiwanese electronics industry newspaper has warned that potential shortages of body panels, battery cells and other basic notebook components could hit shipments of PCs from all manufacturers.
The Dell Ireland spokeswoman said that "these are industry-wide supply constraints, but we are working with each customer to ensure they get the equipment they order as quickly as possible".
A spokesman for Lenovo, the world's fourth-largest PC manufacturer said there was likely to be shortages due to plant slowdowns associated with the "Golden Week" holiday in Asia which happens in September.
"However, with correct planning and forecasting to cover market supply fluctuations, the impact for Lenovo should be minimal," the spokesman said.
"HP continue to feel pretty good about our position from a supply perspective," said Martin Cullen, general manager of HP Ireland's personal systems group. "[Notebook screens] are tighter than at other times, but we forecasted and locked in our supplies before the start of the quarter."
