Chris Leckness

Hello Michael Dell and Staff.

My name is Chris Leckness, I am the owner of this massive community of Dell Axim Owners. I am writing this today to voice the opinions of this community ( am fairly sure I speak for a large percentage of our members). Dell has done a great job when dealing with sites like this. My contact has provided me a superb path to get info, put out fires, and help us to evangelize the Dell Axim line. In fact, my contact is the best I have ever dealt with in any company. I do not know how much weight my contact's voice has when relaying our concerns back to Dell, so I am writing this with the hope that it will help.

Fixes
The 1st item I would like to discuss is fixing what is broken. There are thousands of X50 series Axim owners out there that are frustrated. See this Petition to Dell and the comments here that follow along with it. (link). These users purchased the Dell Axim X50 series PDA and were offered an upgrade to Windows Mobile 5. Many users reverted back to WM2003 2nd Edition to maintain full functionity of thier Axim. There is a patch coming soon for the X51 series, but I am being led to believe that there is not one for the X50. If this is true, we have a problem. Where is the support?

Rumors of getting out
As you may have heard, rumors are running wild that Dell is leaving the PDA Market. I am not sure if it is true or not, but alot of signs are pointing me to this being true. You guys ditched the Dell DJ as well, so it won't surprise me. If this is true, my question is this, Why? I understand that the Axim is most likely a microscopic portion of the income, but this is a sector that I am sure Dell is making money in. Not only making money, but selling well too! HP has already mapped their future and seems to have stopped selling the X51v rival, the iPAQ hx4700 series. If you leave the game too, where will the medical students and other that are just starting to use a Pocket PC go? Fujitsu? Read these threads to get some Aximsite perspective: LINK 1 | LINK 2

Add more
If the plan is to continue to develop the Axim line, read these forums to find out what "We" want! More memory, Bluetooth that works, and maybe even a built in GPS.

Convergence
Ok, the writing is on the wall. Microsoft, HTC, HP, and others are paving the way for the converged world. Many Pocket PC users here at Aximsite seem to be against convergence as a whole, but I am sure there are many that want their phone and pda in one unit. I know for sure I do. Come on Dell, make a converged device. Heck, rebrand the HTC Hermes and call it the Axim X101. Convergence is the future! Come on board!

Support
I am sure there have been some good support calls before, but for the most part, 90% of support posts here and emails I receive blast Dell's support of the Dell Axim. Outsourcing and stateside support seems to be lacking seriously. That's why these forums are so popular. I get at least one or two emails each month thanking me for this site and that they heard about it from a support tech that sent them here because they couldn't answer the question. Emails like this make me wonder how popular the Axim would have been without enthusiast sites like Aximsite. The tech support staff would definitely be double the size. Anyhow, no need to run the support issue to the ground. Fix it!

Thanks for reading and if you want to contact me to discuss any of these issues, my PR contact has my number.

__________________
Chris Leckness, Microsoft MVP Windows Mobile

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Lat

Thanks. Hopefully they'll take note =)

Nyce22

Great letter! Thank you for doing this for us. I appreciate it alot.

Palmzire31

I second that. Great job. Now all we have to do is wait and see what the response is going to be.

__________________
People who ask our advice almost never take it. Yet we should never refuse to give it, upon request, for it often helps us to see our own way more clearly.

~~Brendan Francis~~


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kam33mitch

Chris,

We all appreciate you taking the podium for us. You are expressing what this group is feeling for sure and hopefully Dell will realize this. Please share what you hear back and let us know if we need to shout louder.

I too would be lost without Aximsite!!!

Graham Best

You may want to mention that 'massive community' = 120k+ users. Executive managers tend to like hard numbers.

chalinga

Since the replies have to be aleast 5 words, I have to write this sentence. However my real comment to Chris's letter is one word...

AMEN

chaosrain

Chris,
I like the message you are attempting to pass along to Michael Dell on our behalf. As a stickler, though, I think you could stand to do a bit of proofreading on the thread. There are a few typos and other issues. Short of that, though, Kudos!

kulnet

Awesome letter Chris! Thanks for stepping up to the plate for us. I just hope it actually goes somewhere. Best of luck to you!

blinblue

I would like to add that for a bunch of us (like me) price is a big issue. That is why I love the X30, it has pretty much everything, and it is very cheap to buy used.
If Dell made a successor to the X30, I would be very happy. Higher capacity battery, refined design (bigger D-pad) and fix some of those other annoying little problems.

Wifi (802.11G would be awesome) and bluetooth are a must for any new Pocket PC

Long live the pocket PC!

donbmcd

There IS an alternative solution to Convergent Devices. If you had a nice siple system that turned on your AXIM, synched through your phone (Bluetooth) and then went back to sleep. .Team this with Verizon or Cingular, and you'd have a cheaper, better and more useful tool then a Treo 700w.

WE, the consumer should drive this debate, not the phone companies.

texedomel

cheers! I really would love to see things get improved because of this letter! Awesome!

I agree the Axim is a great machine all by itself...but with some improvements it will be the perfect gadget for a lot of people.

larrywms45

I, like some other Axim 50v users not only use the Axim site but buy laptops, desktops, HDTV's, monitors, storage devices; etc. I just started a new job and with it came a new laptop. I was asked to choose between Dell and Sony. I chose the Sony because I just couldn't in good faith put more money into a company that has orphaned me and my X50.

I get some sort of Dell ad emails each week and I just trash them without even looking at them.

Thanks Chris, I don't think I could have said it better.

Aximsite contributor.

nathanwj

go chris!!!!!!!! awesomeness!!!!!!!!! go chris and aximsite!!!:)

manoloalvarez

Thanks a lot Chris, well done!!!!!