Dell Exec Goes After Apple iPad 2, Fails Math 101

Tech company executives are always good for a mind-boggling quote or two, and as reported by CNet Dell’s Andy Lark is no different.

The head of enterprise marketing was speaking to CIO Australia when he bestowed upon them some pearls of wisdom that come straight out of the Steve Balmer school of crazy-talk.

First off we have this gem:

Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island. It’s not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex.

Now we get where Lark was going with that, though we can’t help but think he could have worded it differently to, you know, make sense.

The best quote though has to be his attempt at rudimentary mathematics, but it seems adding up isn’t this particular exec’s strong suit.

An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you’ll be at $1,500 or $1,600; that’s double of what you’re paying. That’s not feasible,

Firstly, we’re not sure why the guys at Dell think we need a mouse for a touch-operated machine but we’ll pass that one over for now. The crux of the matter is Lark’s claim that it would cost $1500 to get an iPad 2 up and running with accessories. Perhaps the Dell calculators are different to ours, but we can’t make the total come to more than $1000 – and that includes a reasonable, and pointless, mouse!

We want to give Andy Lark the benefit of the doubt here, we really do. Perhaps he’s been misquoted, or just given some duff information. Who knows?

What we do know though, is until told otherwise we’re going to label this guy as comedy gold!

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