By Dave Smith
Dell may have found a way to reinvent itself: The Round Rock, Texas, company is considering going private after 24 years on the Nasdaq, but even if a deal isn’t struck, there’s one particular project in development that may completely change Dell’s outlook and make it a true contender in this post-PC era.
I know what you’re thinking. “Dell? Making a Post-PC contender? But Dell makes PCs. Why would Dell kill off its own business?” One word: reinvention.
Dell might just enjoy another renaissance if all goes well with its project codenamed Ophelia, a USB-size self-contained computer, which can provide access to virtually every major operating system there is — from the Mac OS to Windows to Google’s Chrome OS to cloud-based solutions from Citrix and Dell — all via the cloud.
Ophelia works exactly like a USB port: Just plug it into any flat panel monitor or TV, and, boom, you have a computer. Ophelia automatically connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi and can link to keyboards and other peripherals via Bluetooth.
According to Quartz, Ophelia is powered by Google’s Android operating system to handle local tasks such as decoding and encoding audio and video, but the computer itself is relatively power-friendly. The Ophelia reportedly draws 2.1 watts of power; comparatively, the average smartphone microprocessor draws a little more than 1 watt, while the average PC can consume more than 20 times as much electricity.
Ophelia is so electricity-savvy, because most of its tasks are offloaded to servers in the cloud, and even though the device resembles nothing like a computer, it essentially provides the exact same experience — as long as you can connect to the Internet.