DELL's New Clothes: Branding Is Everything

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Dropping many of their most iconic brands, Dell mimics Apple’s iPhone naming for 2025. Gone are the Inspiron, Latitude, XPS, and Precision. While Dell has struggled with branding for many years, this new genericification seems odd. Michael has also been obsessed with Apple products, but the direct lift of the branding is confusing.

In typical Dell fashion, each of the three new lines has three levels (good, better, best) here labeled base, plus, premium. So, now you’re going to have Dell Pro Max Premium, Dell Pro Max Plus, and Dell Pro Max Base. Is that really needed? It’s not like it makes it easier for your IT team to buy a fleet of the perfect configuration. I think the branding before was confusing. Side brands like XPS and Vostro muddied the water when shopping for a Dell laptop. What is an Inspiron and is it better than a Latitude?

I’ve been working for, with, and inside Dell for most of my career. As they are killing the AI server space with Nvidia, it’s interesting that a name-brand-pivot was important at this time. What’s the idea? Simplify? Reduce the “wtf” reaction when trying to wade into Dell.com and buy a computer?

Many years ago I wrote about Concreting the Path about how Dell’s e-commerce platform quickly sorts you from consumer to small business to enterprise. Then, pricing also gets confusing. It was hard to buy the right laptop on Dell.com. The brands got in the way. But, more critically, the channelization got in the way. It was easy to work up 4 separate laptop orders with very similar specs, but with a 20% price variation, depending on which “cow path” you were sent down by the ecommerce system.

Today, I guess all that changes with a name? Well, of course, we know that’s not going to happen. Even as generic as the new naming convention is, Dell is still going to drive your buying experience into your channel and give you OFFERS, SPECIALS, and DISCOUNTS depending on which path you take. Consumer? Business? Enterprise? I haven’t been to Dell.com for several years, but I’m guessing not much has changed in that architecture.

Well, it’s obvious why Dell has a problem. How do you make sense of this list? You can’t. What’s a Copilot+ PC?

I am happy to see Dell winning the AI war for hardware. When Dell thrives my entire city thrives. (Austin, Texas) Dell, however, has a way of making things more confusing and I’m not sure the new Base, Premium, Plus or is it Base, Plus, Premium, is going to get them a lot of new customer ‘ah ha’ moments.

The real news is 80% of Dell’s business has little to do with Dell.com. Sure, it’s the part we all see. But Dell Premier, the large business portal, is where the big contracts are written. Dell Consumer can experiment and play with branding, naming, and even pricing. The real money is on number of units shipped in 2024. Dell is still quite healthy, still laying off swarms of people at various shareholder checkpoints during the year. Who doesn’t love the value of a contractor? No benefits. No pesky unemployment.

I cheer Dell’s wins with the Nvidia partnership. I don’t want to help you sort Dell.com to get you the best buy, or subject you to “sign up” for deals that will flood your inbox forever. If your main strategy in consumer electronics is “discounts” you are forced to discount everything all the time, repeatedly. New names. Valentine’s Day Blowout. Independence Day Price Drop. It’s a cutthroat world out there in e-commerce. Dell is doing better than most. It will take some time to see the results of the new naming plan. Today, it makes the selections even more confusing as the brands are still mixed in, while they try to sell the old computers out of their lineup.

Here’s my similar rant from January 2012.