When Dell’s last Axim was axed for good, many commentators in the PocketPC arena wondered themselves why this series was ended – after all, it was very successful, scored rave reviews and also was popular with developers(it was the top device from a sales perspective for Resco in the last TamsPalm interview). No reason to kill the series – but Dell still did. IMHO, they didn’t do so because they wanted though…they did because they had no other choice. Sounds mad? Yep, but it isn’t – please follow along…

Lets begin our journey with a visit to the Axim’s source – HTC. The Dell Axim essentially is a design by HTC(which, according to some industry insiders was rejected by HP); Dell just stamps its brand logo onto it and manages the distribution. So, HTC produces and Dell makes the big margins… . This combination stands behind many PocketPC smartphones(with a carrier instead of Dell) for sale in Austria and has worked well so far…

However, HTC is not dumb. Why should others make the big money if they can do it themselves? This kind of thinking has become prevalent there – an industry insider I met at the CeBit(by ill luck in a press taxi :) ) working for a major distributor told me that HTC is on a ’sort of ego-trip’, wanting to promote its own brand. Palm’s Treo 750 manufacturer swap is an example of that new policy.

With Dell loosing HTC, it essentially had nothing. Nada. Zilch. No hardware design, no PCB layouts, no nothing. A lot of the applications on the Axim series were written by HTC(just check the About sections…), and lets not forget all the drivers and other custom stuff. So, Dell would have needed an enormous amount of R&D cash to get their Axims rolling again – cash that they didn’t want to spend for one reason or the other…

Of course, this is all just speculation – but with the raising market share of PocketPC’s and Dells classically good market shares, it looks very plausible. There still is money in high-end PDA’s…not the kind of money other companies made years ago on a funky device called Vx; but still good enough money. Essentially, the only one who knows more is Dell – but they prolly wont tell. And since Austrians say that stuff that rhymes is good…what do you think?


Related posts:

  1. Dell Axim relaunch rumors, Part n
  2. Michael Dell on smartphones
  3. Dell Axim – not dead yet
  4. Proporta Alu-Leather Case for Dell Axim x51v – the review
  5. Carriers to Dell: your phones suck