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By Rob Enderle for TGDaily
When it comes to AI deployments, two companies stand out for their breadth of offerings, but only one of the two currently has the experience to better assure the outcome. While Michael Dell has recently stepped up and appears to be personally driving his company to do better, Lenovo has been working on AI development for some time now and has deployed AI internally more aggressively than its once larger competitor, and this has resulted in a far stronger offering.
Let’s talk about why Lenovo is a better choice than Dell, at least for now, in terms of AI deployment.
I’ve been writing about AI deployments a lot of late because so many have failed catastrophically. When done right, AI can be a powerful tool given it has advanced to surpass humans in almost all performance benchmarks. This is a tool that will undoubtedly result in massive numbers of company failures along with unexpected company successes, differentiating the firms that can ride this wave over those that get buried by it. Finding a partner that is knowledgeable and capable (like IBM and NVIDIA) is problematic for most companies.
Dell was one of the companies surprised by the rapid advancement of AI. Google was also caught napping even though it had one of the leading AI development efforts. For Dell, AI just wasn’t a priority until suddenly Microsoft surprised the world with ChatGPT and Copilot and created what is now the biggest underfunded technology ramp in history. I say underfunded because prior technology revolutions like Windows 95 and the iPhone were far better funded than this one currently is, probably because companies like OpenAI don’t get marketing and are too small to field an adequate campaign, while Microsoft isn’t willing to spend what is needed to assure success. (The Windows 95 launch budget, for example, was around $800M adjusted for inflation).
AI is a personal tool. You need competence in all of the platforms that will provide an interface between the human user and the AI tool. Along with most other PC companies, Dell failed and gave up on smartphones which are likely to become the most common human interface into AI constructs. Why? Because current AIs use natural language and lend themselves to a speech interface rather than typing, and you don’t need a big screen to interact with AIs. Yes, PCs will play a role, but as we move to AI engineers like Devin and other AI-generated specialists, the need for a large-screen interface will be substantially reduced. Collaborating with a company that can integrate smartphones into a solution will become more critical over time. Lenovo has smartphones while Dell appears unable to bring a smartphone solution to market.
Even with PCs Lenovo has been more aggressive with Microsoft’s top AI PC platform which is based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor and is rumored to be featured at the Microsoft launch. It is also rumored to be creating its own AI operating system, as well. In contrast and until recently, Dell has appeared to be defunding its own client unit which has significantly lagged both Lenovo and HP over time. My personal experience with Dell has shown it aggressively attempting to, at least until recently, cover up its shortcomings rather than address them, a problem that also occurred when Michael Dell first stepped out of the CEO role in the early 2000s. Until recently, Michael Dell had appeared to have “retired in place,” which is at least partially the cause of Dell’s poor competitive performance. Financially, it has been doing fine, but underneath those numbers, things haven’t been looking as good…
Find out how Dell covered up its deficient performance when you read the rest of the article: Why Lenovo Is The Better Choice Than Dell In AI Deployment
About the Author
Rob Enderle is the president and principal analyst at the Enderle Group, where he provides regional and global companies with guidance on how to create a credible dialogue with the market, target customer needs, create new business opportunities, anticipate technology changes, select vendors, and products, and practice zero-dollar marketing. You can reach the author via email.
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