Dell won’t be closing its manufacturing facility in Bukit Mertajam, Penang

The rumors about Dell to close its manufacturing facility in Bukit Minyak, Penang has been around for months. The facility will eventually be sold to a contract manufacturer from Taiwan which will then will be doing its  outsourcing work (manufacture the notebook and desktops) for Dell.

It appears that the rumors is untrue. Steve Felice, Dell Asia Pacific President on recent press conference related to Dell Q4 performance denied such rumors and at the same time said Dell will continue its present operation in Penang. Dell has 3 facilities in Malaysia, 2 in Penang and 1 in Cyberjaya. Altogether, total of Dell employees is about 5000 in Malaysia.

This news come as a relief for Dell employees especially during hard times like now. However with Dell having one of its worst perfomance ever, other cost cutting measures are still possible to affect them, which includes salary cut.

Dell expand retail operation in Indonesia

metrodata Dell expand retail operation in Indonesia

After making inroad in Singapore and Malaysia’s retail channel , Dell recently continue it’s retail expansion in Indonesia via PT Metrodata. From their press release, Metrodata known to has long relation with Dell since 2002 when they become Dell’s Authorize Service Provider and commercial product partner

Metrodata, a public listed company on Indonesia’s stock exchange,  is one of the leading information technology company in Indonesia. It has worked and ally with multinational companies such as Oracle, IBM and Dell and has strong reputation in Indonesia.

Through METRODATA’s retail network and partners in the 5 major cities of Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, and Medan, Dell will begin offering XPS M1330 and the Inspiron 1420 laptops; and the Inspiron 530 and 530s (slim-build) desktops.

Indonesia with 200 millions residents is definitely a very huge market for Dell. But with it’s unique geographical condition, where the country is separated by thousands of islands, selling direct through online store is insufficient to cater the needs of mass citizen.

Since making an announcement to expand it’s retail presence in Asia last year, Dell has aggressively building up and finding retail partner in a new but high growth market such Indonesia . Where’s next? Philippines and Thailand are another major market in South East Asean, where Dell has no presence in retail. Dell could expand in this countries very soon. Stay tune for more news and update

No AMD in Dell.com

AMD No AMD in Dell.com
 

Dell no longer sells AMD based system through their website, Dell.com. To be more accurate, this is for consumer segment only. As Dell currently moves its consumer sales through retail and partership, AMD based system will only be available through that. However, Dell will continue to support AMD products.
 
What is the impact?
A quick check on Dell.com.my, there is no more AMD based system available, neither Notebook nor desktop even though it is reported that Inspiron 531 is still available online. In other countries where Dell retail presence is quite significant, the availability of AMD based system to mass consumer market is still better. But the situation is different in Malaysia where Dell has a small number of direct stores or retail partners, where most of them are only available in big cities.  This means that now it is almost impossible for Malaysians who stay out of Klang Valley to buy Dell AMD based system online.

While I believe less Malaysians prefer to buy Dell or shop online too, this is definitely a good news for their rivals such as HP, Acer and Lenovo who has stores or retail partners all over Malaysia such as Courts, NCS, PCDepot, small computer shops and even hypermarkets such Tesco and Carefour. These computer vendors has long became AMD’s partner and selling wide range of AMD’s based processor systems.

For AMD, Dell represents a small chunk of its sales only and this action won’t directly impact its earning.

For you who wants to get Dell’s based AMD system in peninsular Malaysia, the only place you can get it is at Midvalley Megamall Shopping Centre and Lowyat Plaza, while there is 1 store in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah which belongs to TecAsia. You might get the 2nd hand systems from Lowyat.net or Lelong.com.my.

 
 

Pictures of Dell Direct Store

dell1 Pictures of Dell Direct Storedell2 Pictures of Dell Direct Store

Finally, I manage to get the Dell so called Direct Store’s pictures from my friend. On my post earlier, I have mentioned about the opening of Dell’s Direct Store in Mid Valley Megamall shopping complex.

I’m not sure if this is part of Dell’s channel strategy, since the store itself bear the Dell logo as well as Intel. It could be the collaboration between Dell and Intel to showcase their product to the public. I doubt there are AMD’s powered notebooks/desktops displayed there.

Judging on the size of the store, it seems that the store is not that huge and does not showcasing full array of Dell’s product. I’m actually expecting something similar (or almost) to Mac Store nearby

If Dell is looking somewhere to build similar store, I believe Low Yat Plaza located at Kuala Lumpur’s so called Golden Triangle is the best. It is the largest IT center in Malaysia. I do visit there quite often, and I can see that there are large crowd looking for computer related items.

Good luck Dell!!

Dell open its first store in Malaysia@Mid Valley Mega Mall

dell logo Dell open its first store in Malaysia@Mid Valley Mega Mall

From Dell’s latest advertisement in The Sun today, I stumbled upon the newly opened Dell’s store called Dell Direct Store at Mid Valle Mega Mall, one of the busiest shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur (KL).

At this point, it is unknown if this store is selling Dell’s computer directly to the public or just showcasing Dell’s product for testing and display. I’m trying googling around looking for more details about this info(including picture if any), with no luck.

Since Michael Dell making a u-turn and become the CEO of former world’s number 1 computer maker few months back (HP currently holds the crown), Michael Dell has changed the company direction from purely selling the computer direct to the customer, to be the company that has its own channels or known more as 3rd party vendor here.

In case you’re interested to view the store, please do so using address below. And don’t forget to shoot a picture or 2, and pass it to me to be included in this blog icon smile Dell open its first store in Malaysia@Mid Valley Mega Mall . I’m gonna drop by there soon, maybe when Christmas sale has started

Dell Direct Store
2nd Floor, IT World, Lot 15
Mid Valley Mega Mall
Kuala Lumpur