Dell to Improve Support for Small Businesses with Vostro Line

Published: July 10, 2007

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer of the PC and server company that bears his name, hosted a town hall meeting packed with Dell customers today in New York City as the company launched its Vostro line of desktop and laptop computers aimed at small businesses around the globe. Vostro, which is Latin for "yours," is a new product line for companies with fewer than 25 employees and is based on feedback from Dell customers.

That customer feedback has apparently concentrated on two issues, if the Vostro line is any indication. The first, of course, is better customer support. With the Vostro line, which includes four laptops, a mini-tower desktop, two laser printers, and a 19-inch monitor, Dell is reinstituting a 30-day money-back guarantee for these products--a practice that Dell used when it was a smaller company to build customer loyalty. The Vostro products also include access to 24x7 tech support, which is backed by 6,500 Dell sales and support reps who are focused on this product line.

According to statistics cited by Dell in his presentation, there are 25 million small businesses with fewer than 25 employees in the United States; globally, there are probably several multiples of this amount of small businesses across Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America combined. This is a large number of customers, and one that Dell wants to pursue with renewed vigor as it rejiggers itself.

Based on feedback from 1,800 customers who were surveyed specifically for the development of the Vostro line (not the deluge of advice that Dell has received from its IdeaStorm Web site), Dell is also removing all trialware software from the machines because, as Dell put it, "customers really hate trialware." The Vostro machines come with a PC tune-up tool that automates performance tuning and housekeeping for 32 different parts of the PC. Vostro buyers also get access to a small business forum called SB360 that allows small businesses to talk to each other about technology. According to the Dell survey, about half of the companies polled said they get their advice on what IT systems to install based on the experience of other small businesses. Finally, each desktop and laptop comes with 10 GB of online backup capacity, provided by Dell itself through its DataSafe Online service; the term of the contract is for one year, and after that, customers have to pay to keep the account open.

The plan behind the Vostro line is the same that computer makers have been relying on for decades: serve a large base of small customers, serve it well, and hope that some of them grow like crazy and make it to the big time and therefore need profitable, midrange- and enterprise-class computing. Once small businesses grow, Dell will move them into Latitude notebooks and Optiplex desktops.

Dell, the company, just turned 23 years old in May, and Dell, the man, talked from experience about what the Vostro line was trying to do.

"I remember what it was like to start out and to grow and run a small company," Dell said. "Things were moving really fast and it was a lot of fun. It was rewarding, but it was also an incredible amount of work. I don't think I could do all the things I am doing today in my personal life, with my family, with the amount of energy I expended starting the company. But I also remember thinking to myself as I was doing that, 'There's got to be a better way to make things simpler,' particularly when it comes to the basic infrastructure to run a business. And I was lucky that I was in the computer business, because back then for most small businesses, customizing technology was really a new concept. If you wanted a computer, the manufacturer decided what technology you would get. I saw an opportunity to change the game, and to really make things simpler and more direct."

Dell said that his company has made strides in improving customer support and product quality in the past six to 12 months--last summer featured a few exploding batteries in notebooks and laptops, which did not do a lot for customer confidence in Dell products--but said that more needed to be done. Hence, more hand-holding with the fairly limited Vostro product line.

But Dell's customers--even the loyal ones who made it to the town hall--are going to keep the company to a high standard, if the reaction of one lawyer from the Bronx was any indication. He said that he had been a loyal Dell buyer for many years, but had issues with recent purchases. Despite that, and based on what he heard about Vostro, he was willing to invest again in a Dell machine. "But if this doesn't work out," the lawyer said, "I am going to come and find you." To which Michael Dell quipped, "Well, I am in Round Rock, Texas, but it will probably be easier for you to call or write."

If Dell has plans to move the Vostro packing and support style to its server line, it is not giving any indication of that today. "We don't have a server today," explained Michael Dell. "Right now, Vostro is totally focused on the desktop and laptop, and PowerEdge will remain our server brand."

This is, of course, a completely nonsensical attitude to take with small businesses, which buy servers today and will, in some cases if they grow, buy lots more servers in the future. If there are Vostro PCs, then it is completely logical that there should be Nostro servers. (Nostro being "ours" and reflecting the shared nature of the device.)

Vostro is a global product line, and given that within the past three months, Dell's shipments of PCs outside of the United States have for the first time surpassed shipments inside its home country, it has to be. Dell has two factories in China, one in India, one in Malaysia, one in Brazil, and one that is being built right now in Poland. The fact that Dell's shipments are growing overseas perhaps says more about how U.S. customers are unhappy with Dell's support so far than it does about Dell's popularity outside of America.

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