Dell in Discreet Partnership with Google?
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Written By Reprise Media | January 26, 2006 | Share This
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I recently purchased a Dell Inspiron B130. To my surprise, Google Desktop Search (no longer in Beta) and Google Toolbar were pre-installed when I turned on my machine. No download necessary. Upon further research into this partnership I found Google and Dell have a new co-branded portal-cum-home page ala My Yahoo!, except that in addition to local weather and celebrity gossip you can also shop and track Dell purchases, get tech support, search Google and more (You need your Google account password to sign in and personalize.)
The most interesting thing to me, other than Google’s attempt to index every new Dell laptop moving forward (which could actually have huge implications, to be discussed later), is that nowhere can I find mention of this partnership. I searched the Dell site, Google News, Yahoo!, you name it. A few bloggers who happened to purchase a Dell laptop during the past few weeks have posted, but not a peep from either company and nothing on the Dell site. The only mention of any new Dell bundle deal is for their UK customers; Dells shipped to the UK now come pre-installed with Firefox.
Is this the bell tolling for Microsoft? I mean, MS desktop search was not on my Dell (though IE was).
And where are those analysts who have been shouting that Google is a “one trick pony”? Are they looking in all of Google’s closets before making these broad statements?
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We have been buying a lot of dells lately for our business. They come PACKED with crap that you do not need or want. I would estimate that they are pocketing about $50 for every machine they ship out, just in sponsorship/partnership agreements.
They first thing I do after pulling these machines out of the boxes is spend a half hour deleting a dozen extra apps I don’t want or will never use.
Put HEY - They are cheeeeap! They are definately passing some of these savings on to us.
Do you consider $1 billion over 3 years “discrete”?
of course it came with IE its intergrated into the OS there is no windows without IE
Yes, IE was on the Dell, I am not disputing that. But there was no MSN Desktop Search shortcut on the desktop. Google Desktop Search was there instead.