DELL WANTS a slice of Apple’s tasty profits and has decided that since it is already selling a poor imitation of the Cupertino firm’s MacBook - the overpriced Adamo - it may as well open up its very own imitation Apple store, too. Introducing the Dell store, Dubai.

Dubai’s expansive 440,000 sq ft shopping mall, the latest and greatest Oasis of the Arabian peninsula, will be the location of Dell’s first Dell store.

Dell clearly sees a mirage of its high-end future, not as simply another computer maker in the souk, but as a veritable competitor to the pastel toymaker.

So how much gold has Dell had to raid from its Aladdin’s cave to pay for a spot in Dubai Mall’s electronics area? It’s hard to say exactly, but locals in the know reckon space in the mall is being sold at around $150 per sq ft and the Dell store apparently measures 60ft by 40ft (20m by 13m).

Using our rusty INQ calculator, that’s 2,400 sq ft times 150 equals $360,000, but putting finishing touches to it could bring that cost up to at least $500,000, and that’s without hiring the staff to run it.

Let’s add in utilities costs (like electricity) and estimate that Dell will have to cough up at least $600,000 for a shop with any chance of rivaling Apple’s.

Stuck all the way up on the fourth floor and a little out of the way, it will certainly be interesting - in the current arid economic climate - to see if Dell can really turn a profit on such an extravagant investment.

Of course, Dell might also be planning to imitate Apple’s “fleece the locals” strategy for all we know, by abusing its host’s hospitality with horrendous overpricing.

So - again pulling out our rusty INQ calculator - if Dell is planning on making approximately $200 profit per unit, then $600,000 divided by $200 means the firm will need the store to sell about 3,000 units to break even.

Will the direct approach work well enough to shift that much inventory? We dune not know, but we’ll keep an eye on things and keep you posted.

(Published on http://www.kumaran.biz on April 24th, 2009)