Dell stays positive of consumer IT biz in Phl

MANILA, Philippines -- Despite a major slump in its PC sales in the latest quarter, Dell remains positive on the consumer side of the business in the Philippines.

Recent reports said Dell's earnings declined 79 percent in the first quarter (ending May 3)  of its fiscal year,  as demands for smartphones and tablets continue to grow by the day.

In an interview with Philstar.com, Christopher Papa, Country Manager for Dell Philippines, said the company continues to invest in the consumer IT space.

"We are very positive about consumer business here in the Philippines. In fact in the last couple of quarters we've launched a couple of notebook models also like the XPS 12 that covers both consumer and commercial customers," Papa said.

Dell's XPS 12 is a two-in-one device. Besides being a fully-featured, full-powered laptop, it is also a fully-featured touch-powered tablet.

Papa added that Dell remains strong in their relationship with business process outsourcing companies in terms of usage of desktops and notebook devices.

The executive said it is inevitable that many of its customers are moving into tablets and smartphones and specific to Dell they see it happening. But such consumerization of IT brings concerns to companies as employees bring their own devices and use them in the workplace.  

"You have to strike the balance between usage and productivity like how are you using those devices. Like if you need to use Excel then you need a notebook," Papa said, adding Dell offered recently its on-site services to its retail customers and the company continues to invest in the consumer side of the business.

During its IT solutions tour in Manila on Tuesday, Dell showcased its capability to deliver its end-to-end solutions to meet the challenges of today's five IT trends that disrupts business, such as consumerization of IT, security, big data, cloud computing, and social networking.

Papa said since Dell's solutions are modular and open, they can cater to medium-size companies all the way to large corporate accounts.