Dell Corp has entered the Chinese smartphone market

Dell Corp has become the fourth hardware manufacturer to enter the Chinese smartphone market according to reports from technology blog Engadget.com, the others who also launched on the China Mobile network included Nokia, LG and Samsung.
The somewhat lacklustre smartphone entry called the Mini 3i from Dell includes “2G (no 3G) but does come with a 3 megapixel camera, microSD slot, Bluetooth, and 950mAh battery.” despite the fact that China is expected to adopt the coveted 4G mobile networking standard commercially by 2010, as reported by Rediff.com.

Dell Corp have previously been involved in creating a line of PDA’s (a lesser version of a smartphone) called the Axim, which were ditched in 2007 and said to be “likely temporary” according to Eddie Chan, a market analyst with research group IDC Canada. Despite pressure from the success of the iPhone, and interviews on highly influential blogs such as Gigaom.com, Dell didn’t budge on it’s approach to playing down rumors. It seems the Mini 3i was likely the “big contender” Dell had been preparing for during this 2 year period.
The initial response to the device has been lukewarm, and hasn’t roused many technology news pundits in the way the iPhone did back in 2007, unsurprisingly this is beginning to look like another drop in the ocean, and is likely going to take a big hit to Dell’s upcoming financial quarterly results, I say this because the lack of legitimate investment into China has cost Apple (maker of the iPhone) big bucks during recent months.
Reports from VentureBeat.com suggest that Apple’s “talks with China’s largest carrier, China Mobile, didn’t work out because the two couldn’t agree on revenue share terms.“, yet there over 1 million “jailbroken” iPhones in China (not linked to a set mobile carrier payment plan), and losing Apple potentially millions in revenues each year.
Currently right now, Dell have been perhaps a tad more successful in gaining access to the Chinese mobile market because of the lack of “cult status” that Apple upholds with it’s iPhone 3GS (Current model of the popular smartphone).
Chinese smartphone clearly doesn’t see Dell’s latest effort as a long term investment, and sees Apple’s iPhone currently as a more costly investment to bring into the Chinese phone market. It’s likely that Phil Schiller and Steve Jobs of Apple have worked relentlessly to get the iPhone into China, and it seems may be in luck if a deal is reached with China’s second largest mobile phone carrier China Unicorn.
Whether or not Dell has “hit the mark” by being the first American company to be instigated into China is yet to be seen, but Dell have certainly “cut many corners” and let Chinese smartphone dictate a LOT of the software requirements for the device itself. That is another reason why the iPhone won’t make it into China currently, the Chinese mobile phone carriers wish to have their own software (with attached applications store) rather then the proprietary iPhone software and application store.