Thought: Dell is the Odd Man Out

It's not hard to say that the hardware currently available for Windows Phone 7 isn't great. While the OS itself is unique, sexy and exciting, manufacturers seemed hesitant to truly innovate for Microsoft's latest. Some would attribute the lack of manufacturer innovation to Microsoft's rigid hardware restrictions, but at the end of the day we still got leftovers with hot sauce thrown on 'em and OEMs called it "new".

Yet oddly enough, the one manufacturer that has been completely absent from today's smartphone invasion managed to outperform already proven market leaders: Dell. Even more odd is that Dell is the absolute least talked about manufacturer when it comes to Windows Phone news or users, despite some serious love for their hardware. Hell, I've only explicitly talked about the Dell Venue Pro three times total on the site.

So what the heck happened to Dell?

Only a few months after Windows Phone 7 was announced to the world at MWC 2010 and detailed at MIX '10 (and still had the 'Series' appendage tacked on the end), Engadget landed a huge exclusive leak. Dell's tentative smartphone lineup for the 2010 fiscal year was out in the wild and notably featured some handsome Android devices like the Flash, Smoke and Thunder along with Android-powered tablets. But the biggest story of that leak was undoubtedly the Dell Lightning.

The Dell Venue Pro, once upon a time.
Image via Engadget

The phone was drop-dead gorgeous and featured a 4.1" OLED display along with a portrait-sliding QWERTY keyboard. The form factor was unheard of at that size, with the only major modern smartphones utilizing it being the Palm Pre and, a few months later, the Blackberry Torch. The most interesting part? It was powered by Windows Phone 7. Of course you know the end to that fairy tale: the Dell Lightning became the Dell Venue Pro, and it was a launch device for Windows Phone 7 in November 2010.

Or at least that was the plan. Instead Dell suffered from serious quality control issues at launch, and were forced to delay the phone until it reappeared in early December. In hindsight, would the delay really have hurt Dell's chances to make it big with the Venue Pro? To fans of the operating system, maybe, but not to the general public.

The Venue Pro could have potentially become Windows Phone's Droid

No, where Dell really got hurt was the fact that it wasn't selling the phone in stores. Whether Dell couldn't convince a carrier to sell it or they just decided to sell it themselves, in the end that is probably the main reason why no one even mentions the Venue Pro anymore. But in many news outlets' opinions, the Venue Pro could have potentially become Windows Phone's Droid -- the killer phone that represented the OS at its best. Instead we received a cautious approach from a company that couldn't afford to take it so lax, especially being one of the few launch partners of a new operating system from Microsoft. What's even more puzzling is that before the launch, Dell seemed to be taking Windows Phone 7 even more seriously than the other manufacturers. In fact, the company was planning to transition over 25,000 employees using BlackBerrys to the Venue Pro which is certainly a bold move in any industry.

Yet at the end of the day, we're still left asking the same question: what the heck happened to Dell? Even then, another new question has risen: can Dell dig itself out of its own ditch and man up to play alongside the HTCs and Samsungs of the industry? Only time will tell but as far as we can see, there's always a loser and Dell is the odd man out.