Dell Employees to Ditch Blackberries for Dell Smartphones

From DailyTech: Dell is taking dead aim at Research In Motion by making employees ditch the Blackberry maker's products in exchange for its own line of smartphones, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Initially, Dell's 25,000 employees will be offered the Windows Phone 7-powered Dell Venue Pro in exchange for their Blackberries. The company plans to support Android-based devices in the future, as well.

"Clearly in this decision we are competing with RIM, because we're kicking them out," Dell CFO Brian Gladden told WSJ. "We actually had a conversation last night around creating a site on eBay where we can actually sell these BlackBerry devices" that employees return.

The trade-in begins next week and is projected to save Dell 25 percent in mobile costs, mostly thanks to the elimination of Blackberry servers, Gladden said. Dell is in talks with T-Mobile, in hopes that the carrier will provide minutes and data in bulk each month, with any leftovers rolling over to the next month.

Dell employees who currently have work-issued Blackberries will be able to trade them in for Dell Venue Pros -- which is the WP7 twin of the Android-based "Thunder" -- with voice and data plans. Other employees will also be able to choose Dell phones, sans data.

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