 This is Dave Vellante, we're back here at Dell World in Austin, Texas, the great city of Austin. What a vibe in this town. We're here live, this is theCUBE, Silicon Angles Continuous Coverage. We bring you to the events, we extract the signal from the noise, we cover all the angles, we've had all the Dell executives on, we had Michael Dell yesterday, we've got Marius Haas coming on today, Steve Feliz, Kim Stevenson, CIO of Intel, but we've got a special segment right now really focusing on gadgets and mobile. It's a key aspect of the market. Dell has been struggling in that area. We all know the story. Dell's PC business is declining. PC business as a whole isn't declined, and of course we all know about the rise of the smartphone, and Dell's got this conundrum. On the one hand, it's got to play in the smartphone market, but on the other hand, it doesn't have the relationships with the carriers, so it's a tough situation for Dell, and that's where all the volume is. But mobile has happened, there's a lot of action here. We're here with Kristen Nicole and Mark Hopkins, both of Silicon Angle, they're experts in the area. Folks, welcome. Okay, thanks. All right, so Kristen, let's start with you. You've been eroding the floor, listening to the keynotes, reading all the news. What do you see happening here at Dell World? There's a lot happening on the gadget side. They have got a little station outside. You can play around with some of the new devices that have come out this year. They've got their tablet out there, the Latitude 10. Got to play around with that for a little while. Windows 8, of course, is huge for them, so it's their next big opportunity to really get back on this mobile bandwagon here. Yeah, I mean, everybody's got the Windows 8 skepticism on. We're going to actually ask Steve Felice about that as to whether or not Windows or operating systems are a catalyst and what that means for Dell. But what do you think about the whole Windows 8 situation? Is that going to propel the market? Is the people not going to move fast enough? Is it not as relevant? Is it maybe used to be? What's your take on that? Well, it's clear that Microsoft's got their strategy, trying to provide their own devices and work with partners like Dell and then also get their products, their software on as many devices as possible. So it's very evident that that's important for them, whether or not it will pick up steam, remains to be seen. One thing that really stood out for me when I was playing with some of the hybrids. Now, the hybrid, I think, is a huge play for here's the entire Windows computer experience that's gone mobile. So there's a laptop that you can pop out the screen and take it as a tablet and you've got the combined experiences in that regard. But I played with it a little bit and I think there's still a lot of usability kinks that they need to work out. So it's familiar in one regard and I think that's very important if they're gonna target business users and maybe also some of the regular consumer end. It's going to be an interesting play, I think. We'll see. Mark, what are your thoughts on this whole space and what Dell's doing here? Well, so Windows 8, I think, so Chris and I were talking about because we both played it over in their little mobility experience area. I think it's easy to use, but not intuitive to use, which is a subtle distinction. I mean, because you got it, I left it over there. There's a book. They give you a manual on how to use the UIs, 20 pages, size of a notepad. But I mean, it's simple stuff like swiping from the edge of your screen or swiping down and we had a little bit of a time trying to figure out how to share stuff. You know, on Android, it's really easy. You've got that little universal symbol for sharing on just about anything. You see on the web or on all devices and within the Windows interface, to share you need to swipe from the right edge to pull up the sharing interface, which again, it's easy once you know how to do it. So you're swiping a semi-vertical screen? Is that right? Yeah, so let's say this is your tablet edge, you just like that and then it comes up with a little bar on the side and you hit share. But I mean, the human wrist is such that you're much more comfortable swiping a flat surface versus appointing my wrist up. I can see the couple tunnel syndrome hitting me. If you've got the tablet, then you can hold it. However you would hold a tablet and you swipe this way. If you've got it, if it's one of the tablets that also doubles for the docking station, then it... Well, there's standard Windows mode too. Yeah, there's also standard Windows mode. So if you scroll enough over to the side, you'll see all the options that you have for Windows. If you scroll back this way, then it's the Metro UI interface. And specifically to the sharing feature that we're talking about, if you've got it docked and you're using the keyboard, it's not quite as easy because you're more inclined to use the keyboard when it's docked. But you can still use the touchscreen while it's docked. So then in that case, yeah, maybe there's some cardboard tunnel issues that you might run into. I imagine there is a good way to share when it's docked. I just, I have to go back through the manual. The concept of a manual is scaring me, guys. I got to admit it. I thought we lived in a day with no manuals, but or at least minimal ones, like when Dell ships you a PC, you get a little card, step one, two, three, and you're done. That's my kind of manual. To be honest, it is a little bit like an IKEA manual. There's a lot of pictures, but it's still, there's a booklet, none the less. A lot of language is, okay, so it's a little deceiving in that regard. Okay, but so what's your general sentiment on hybrids? I mean, I've heard sort of mixed reviews that people have called them fence sitters, you know, they're not this, they're not that, but they're sort of all in one. But what's your take on that? I think they have a lot of promise. I think, you know, this is their first real product major launch in this area. I think the idea of a hybrid is important, especially if Dell is looking to remain bullish on the PC market, but find a good way to manage the mobile scene. So I really do like the idea of a hybrid. I think that's a concept that people can latch onto. You put the tablet, attach it to this thing. It looks just like a laptop. You'd never know that it's a tablet. That's what you need. If you want to take it as a tablet, then take it as a tablet. The user experience doesn't change too much. One issue I ran into before I could even play with it was somebody had put the tablet back on the dock upside down and then the lock, the rotate was locked. So I'm trying to use the mouse and the mouse does not work at all if the tablet's upside down and locked. So you have to actually take the tablet back out of the dock, turn the lock thing off, put it back in, flip it, open it, all this stuff. It's, I think there's several usability kinks that they need to work through to really ensure that this is a hybrid that's ready for the masses. Yeah, which they will, no doubt. Absolutely. The 1.0 version's got, like you say, a few warts. Okay, let's talk a little bit about Android. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, betting on Microsoft, obviously, the long-time partnership. Some of the management stuff that Dell's doing in the enterprise is, you know, OS agnostic. I like that. Do you feel like Dell's got to sort of break that, you know, long-term tie with Microsoft and start, you know, going with something like Android, or do you feel like the Microsoft path is the right way to go? I think it makes sense for Dell. At this point, this morning they, you know, announced that they're going to just, they've kind of given up on Android. They couldn't figure out a way to make it work. They're not going to even bother with the smartphones anymore. They've even pulled out of China, which was a great experimental market for them. And when it comes to Android, I think that that OS in particular has a really good potential to expand beyond just smartphones and tablets. I think there's going to be a lot of connected devices in the future, whether it's related to your car or kitchen appliances, lots of other gadgets that I think are really going to go to Android first. I'm not sure what Dell's thoughts are on exploring that specific aspect of the market, but it's a little early to say. So, okay, so yes, I mean, right. The news this morning, Dell's sort of backing off from smartphones, which we sort of expected anyway. But Mark, do you feel like long term that Dell has to be in phones? That's a tough call. I think they, I think they'll have to return to it at some point. I mean, right now, I mean, it's, I'm surprised they got out of it, gave up after, you know, a couple of tries at the bat and left, because really we were just talking about this in the office the other day. Excuse me. The feature phone market is still a significant portion of the mobility market. And, you know, 50% according to some estimates have not yet switched to a smartphone. And that still means it's a land grab at which, you know, it's good news for Microsoft. Could have been good news for Dell. But as Dave Floyer put out the other day, there's some numbers, or he did some analysis on the numbers, and Dell Net Income in Mobility, it was the largest falling area of any of their sections. Yeah, I mean, Dell is PC business, right? I mean, Dell was, people used to be really fearful of Dell. Like, oh no, I'm going to compete against Dell. And, you know, clearly HP's doing a good job in PCs, even though, you know, for awhile it wanted to sell its business unit, Lenovo. And, you know, they're doing a good job of gaining share there. But the whole sector's in decline. The way I see it is that Dell, at the same time, Dell is large enough, and using its buying power to leverage that into the enterprise. Really, only Dell and HP can do that. We were at HP Discover in Frankfurt last week. HP, Mark, you were there. They launched a bunch of new tablets. They actually launched it on theCUBE, right? It was the first time anybody really in the States had seen them, because we were up earlier than they were. How would you compare what Dell's doing here with what HP just announced? So, HP did a pretty good job with theirs. I'd say that they're on par. They're on par. I mean, Dell's offerings out here that we saw, now that they're, I think the release dates are pretty close to each other. The look and feel of the devices seem to be pretty close to each other. They got the tablet and then the hybrid offering, which is exactly what HP had. I think, having played with both of them, the feel of the HP hybrid was a lot sleeker than the Dell hybrid. So, I think for me, it might win some cool points there on just the general look and feel of the device, but the form and function, aside from the form, the function of the devices seem to be easily comparable, and the price ranges as well. So, essentially, it's the big Enterprise Wales approach of competing with Apple, right? So, they're trying to deliver enterprise value. Is that because Apple's not getting it done in the Enterprise? I think that's always been the case, right? Right, I mean, they don't seem to really target the Enterprise, right? But just by the fact that everybody wants to bring their own device, it's almost like it's forcing it in there. So, I guess my question is, it's going to work. Will these guys be able to compete with an end-to-end strategy that's integrated and secure and all those other wonderful things that you'd expect from a Dell or an HP? What do you guys think? Well, my thoughts have been in several editorials that I've written and mixed reviews on it, but my thoughts have been that this is a situation where it may kill BYOD opposite of what Dell's been kind of preaching here in their marketing messaging is because we can go back to the days where your company bought you a phone, right? Because they can provision and do the governance stuff just like they would with any other Microsoft device. And, you know, the Microsoft desktop, they can set the policies at the top level. So, you don't, they don't have to worry about you bringing viruses into the network on your BYOD situation, you know? Oh, you let your three-year-old play with the, with the tablet last night and now you've got spyware, malware, Trojan Horses, you know, I don't know if they control the security level and what kind of sites you're able to browse, what kind of apps you can install, then that's not a risk. Right. All right, what else are you guys tracking? Anything in the news that you want to highlight or any other trends that you see that we should be talking about to our audience? Well, I think the device, the all-in-one workstation that Michael Dell revealed during his keynote yesterday, I think it's important to note because he specifically outlines this as a device that will be prepped for business as well as entertainment. So it's kind of shifting away from this enterprise-only strategy, really looking to expand back into the consumer market with this one. And I'm really excited to see what this device is going to be, a little disappointed that they didn't have it here, not revealing any more details. We've talked to a bunch of people on the floor trying to get some information out of them and it's a no-go. Yeah, that was weird, right? Michael, you know, because he's usually very, I mean, he was very crisp in his presentation, you know, but he sort of leaked that out. He says they were doing this all-in-one, we're really excited about it. Then he said you won't be able to see that until next year. It was like, ah. Yeah, just kind of moved on past it. Yeah, we couldn't get any details on that. There is a name of it. Someone knows the name. Someone knows. Because he was thinking about whether or not he was going to tell. So what do you think it is? I mean, you have any clue? No, the device is all-in-one. Well, he showed a picture. So there's a picture of this device and if I had known that there were going to be absolutely no more details on it for the rest of this event, what has snuck a picture of it. And it's a workstation, it's for the desktop. It's in line with the popular Apple computers all-in-one since it's on your desk and you can pop out tablet screen. You can just take it with you. So that's really all the details we have so far. But the fact that he made a point of saying this was for work and play. This is going to be an entertainment device as well. I think that's really important to note here. Excellent. All right, good. Well, Kristen and Mark, thanks very much for coming on theCUBE. Give us a little update on what's happening at Dell with the gadget world key part of the market. It's obviously the fastest growing sector of the market and Dell is committed to this end-to-end strategy and really only Dell and HP can make that claim and they're going at it. We know they don't really like each other and so we love that here at theCUBE. But so we'll be back. We've got a number of guests this afternoon. Let me just go quickly through that. We've got Marius Haas coming on. Marius Haas was the networking executive under Dave Donatelli at HP. Now essentially, Marius Haas has the same job that Dave Donatelli has except he's of course got it at Dell now. So he's running servers and storage and networking for Dell. So that's going to be interesting. We're going to get his perspective. Converged infrastructure was really a term that HP started. You know, when Marius was there and so he's brought a lot of that mojo to Dell. We want to talk to him about that. We've got a number of other executives coming on. Steve Felice, who's the head of sales or the president and chief commercial officer at Dell and Karen Kintos, who's the senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Dell and the hopeful that Pete Corris is going to stop by. He texted us earlier. Said he's going to try to get here at four o'clock. So keep it right here. This is theCUBE, SiliconANGLE's continuous coverage. I'm Dave Vellante of Wikibon and we'll be right back after this short break.