ROSE Blog: Rikki's Open Source Exchange

Introducing Dell, now for women, too!

Dell recently rolled out the Della site, and plenty of women are not amused, including Jennifer Bergen, Jane McEntegart, Kristin Shoemaker, and Joanna Stern (who writes, "Guess what, Dell? Women ARE tech-savvy and shouldn’t be placed in a separate box when it comes to technology. We want options just like men, and notebooks that pack power, functionality and, YES, style.") Plenty of men have also written about the new Della site.

I guess the site is intended to be geared toward the female tech consumer, but the problem is that it feels, well, patronizing. For example, under Tech Tips, you'll find this bit of wisdom: "Once you get beyond how cute they are, you'll find that netbooks can do a lot more than check your email."

Now you might be saying to yourself, "Oh my gawd they are so cute! And they can do more than check my email?" So Della goes on to explain Seven Unexpected Ways a Netbook Can Change Your Life. According to Della, netbooks can help you "Get smarter" (you can turn them into an ebook reader, and reading makes you smarter), "Get healthier" (because you can track your exercise and count calories, because that's number 2 on our list of tech priorities, after all), "Eat better" (my kid isn't the only one pressuring me to cook now – dude, even Dell(a) wants me to do everything around here), "Get organized" (okay, you had me at "Get organized" – if a netbook vendor guarantees to get me organized, I'll crack open the checkbook... if I can find it), "Chill out" (even though I don't have time to get to the gym, I'm supposed to schedule relaxation on my netbook and take yoga video and meditation breaks during the day, even though the very thought of watching yoga videos on my netbook is stressing me out), and netbooks are also supposed to help me "Travel smarter" and "Stay in the cloud," but I lost interest after getting stressed out about chilling out to yoga videos.

What I don't understand is this: The Della site allows comments, but I'm not seeing any. Has anyone written directly to Dell(a) or tried to comment on the site yet? And if so, have you had any response from the company?

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