This story is part of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business 2022. Explore the full list of innovators who broke through this year—and had an impact on the world around us.
Dell XPS laptops are widely regarded as the Windows world’s best portable computers, defined by how they push boundaries in ways that other notebooks—including their Dell stablemates—do not. “We design XPS for tomorrow,” explains Donnie Oliphant, who has spent a remarkable 34 years at Dell and is senior director for the company’s XPS line. Some of his team’s seemingly daring moves—such as squeezing a 13-inch display into a notebook the size of a typical 11-incher—have gone on to become industrywide trends. (In 2021, even Apple followed XPS’s lead by putting bigger screens in smaller MacBook Pros.) Dell reported a record 2021 for PC sales, $61.5 billion, and its best-ever profits, too, of $4.4 billion. The company doesn’t break out sales by product line, but the halo effect of Oliphant’s work elevates Dell’s standing even for customers that don’t buy an XPS.
With the new XPS 13 Plus, released in April, Oliphant and Dell decided to court a younger demographic than usual, aiming to please 16-to-30-year-olds who prize streamlined productivity over feature overload. Its new keyboard design fits roomier keys in the same amount of space, and Oliphant ditched the conventional discrete trackpad in favor of a touch-sensitive palm rest and replaced physical function keys with a light-up touch strip. Even the fancy woven glass Dell used on the previous XPS 13 gave way to a purposefully smooth, unornamented surface. Oliphant acknowledges that such departures could turn off the more cautious types among Dell’s prospective customers. But he stresses that the whole idea is to take calculated risks and see what happens: “We chase perfect all day long, knowing we’re not going to catch it.”
Accedi per aggiungere un commento
Altri post in questo gruppo
The first 100 days of Trump’s second presidential term have included a surprising player that doesn’t seem likely to go away anytime soon: Signal.
The encrypted messaging pl
Cancer research in the U.S. doesn’t rely on a single institution or funding stream—it’s a complex ecosystem made up of interdependent parts: academia, pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology start
Dive into the exhilarating world of innovation with FC Explains, a video series that spotlights the game changers and visionaries from Fast Company’s prestigious Most Innovative Companies list. Th
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has torn through Washington at breakneck speed. During the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term, DOGE has played a central role in
After Pope Francis’s funeral was held over the weekend, attention has now turne
Shares of Deliveroo, the food delivery service based in London, are hitting three-year highs on Monday after it received a $3.6 billion
Social media users have been having a field day with Waymo’s autonomou
