So here I am at Dell’s huge and very professional summit with founder Michael Dell, top people from Microsoft and Intel, impressive power points, expensive commercials, matching polyester ties and all that jazz, and then the – by Dell chosen – moderator starts to rejoice the lack of women in the room. “The IT business is one of the last frontiers that manages to keep women out. The quota of women to men in your business is sound and healthy” he says. “What are you actually doing here?” he adds to the few women who are actually present in the room. 

Dell has announced a six-month, open source pilot program aimed at creating an ultrabook suited specifically for web and mobile developers. The Macbook Air and other OSX based machines have become the development environment of choice for a lot of web and mobile developers recently most likely due to software such as iLife, iMovie and other design tools.

Those competing with Apple have to advertise every new device and computer as being substantially different enough to justify a quicker upgrade cycle. If Apple makes $400 from a low-end MacBook Air that might be in use for five years, and Dell makes $50 (after paying Microsoft for Windows) for a low-end laptop, how quickly does Dell need to sell that person another device? During those five years, Apple might get $29 two or three times for updates to Mac OS X; Dell gets nothing from any Windows upgrades. Apple may also now reap additional dollars from Mac App Store purchases, too. Dell? Nothing.

Dell has stopped selling smartphones in the US as it tweaks its mobile strategy to focus more on emerging markets and higher-margin products.

Dell has nixed its last standing Venue and Venue Pro smartphones and no replacements have been announced. The smartphones had run their course, a Dell spokesman said.

"Mobility products have shorter lifecycles than laptops and desktops," he said.

Dell will introduce more mobile products in the US later this year, but the spokesman didn't say if smartphones will be among them.

The survey, conducted last month, is yet another confirmation that no company comes close to matching the iPad in the enterprise. Indeed, the iPad wannabes are barely on the radar. While 84% of the companies that plan to buy a tablet in the next quarter said they will go with Apple's iPad, up from 77% in November, just 8% said they will buy one from the No. 2 brand, Samsung, compared to 10% in the previous survey.

But Samsung, a highly diversified company, can better withstand a poor showing in the tablet market than can Hewlett-Packard and Dell. "Those companies need to win a toehold in tablets as PCs become less important, <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/consumerization-of-it/4-ways-consumerization-threatens-dell-and-hp-187240">and they're not doing it</a>," [Changewave research director Paul] Carton says. "We're very bearish on them."

Taking Mac and iPad sales together, Apple sold more computers last year than any of the top PC makers.

Asked whether he envied Apple's ability to produce such coveted objects, [Dell chief commercial officer Steve] Felice said: "We come at the market in a different way ... We are predominantly a company that has a great eye on the commercial customer who also wants to be a consumer."

"In the areas where we come at the market, we think we are a coveted brand."