New Dell Vostros Target Emerging Markets

Dell is launching two new notebooks and two desktop PCs...only this time, they're destined for emerging markets in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

U.S. computer maker Dell is making good on its commitment to increase it presence in emerging overseas markets—and no doubt to keep recent promise to its retail partners in places like India and China—by announcing two new Vostro notebooks and two new Vostro desktop systems exclusively for emerging markets in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

“Within the world’s emerging economies millions of new businesses are demanding just the technology they need, at the prices they can afford, from a vendor they can trust. Today we answer that need by introducing new products that join our existing Vostro product line,” said Dell’s president for the Asia-Pacific region Steve Felice, in a statement. Dell says the new Vostros are just the first in a series of additional Vostro products for emerging economies coming in the next several months.

The Vostro A860 notebook features an 15.8-inch high-definition widescreen display, and will be available with Intel Celeron or Core 2 Duo processors, integrated modem and Wi-Fi, and a choice of Ubuntu Lunix or Windows Vista pre-installed. Bluetooth will be available as an option. Meanwhile, the Vostro A840 notebook takes a more compact approach with a 14.1-inch WXGA display.

Finally, for folks who don’t need portable computing solutions, the Vostro A180 desktop sports Celeron or Pentium dual core processors for typical office work as business multitasking…and it’ll also be available with either Ubuntu Linux or Windows Vista. The Vostro A100 will anchor the entry-level tier for basic productivity use, and will sport an Intel Atom processor and Ubuntu Linux.

The basic idea behind all these Vostro offerings is that they should be reliable, affordable, and deliver maintainable, out-of-the-box solutions. The systems will also be pre-configured with “core office productivity applications,” although Dell is careful to characterize the bundles as “only the software customers want” rather than bloatware. Of course, in markets like China, rampant piracy can make full-blown productivity suites a tough sell.