Dell rips off Apple’s iPhone ‘Pro’ and ‘Pro Max’ in an odd rebrand

In an effort to revive PC sales, Dell should have thought carefully about how to rebrand its PCs. Instead he tore iPhones Pro and Pro Max naming conventions.

Although a company can successfully use trademarks for its products for a long period of time, sometimes it becomes willing to try something new. Rebranding efforts by large organizations can require a lot of resources and focus group meetings to create something new, but Dell appears to have abandoned that route altogether.

Dell proudly announced Monday at its annual CES that it’s tired of existing product names. Names such as “XPS” and “Inspiron” were used for many years to denote performance and target markets for the models, but are no longer used.

The tier names will be replaced with strangely familiar terms: Dell, Dell Pro and Dell Pro Max.

This is identical to how Apple labels the levels of its iPhones, as well MacBook Pro range and even it Apple silicon chips. It looks like Dell has decided to leave room for expansion and not go with the Ultra.

Painfully obvious

The announcement, made three months before April Fool’s Day, was made at a pre-CES briefing by Dell Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clark, as well as blog post.

“Customers really prefer names that are easy to remember and easy to pronounce,” Clark told reporters. reports Bloomberg. He insisted consumers need time to “understand our range, which can be a bit confusing at times.”

The briefing participants quickly realized what Dell was doing and pressed them on why it had chosen something resembling a direct competitor’s naming scheme.

“I’m wondering why you guys didn’t go with something original since this is essentially the Apple brand,” one attendee said. Another continued: “Your brand is very similar to Apple, don’t you follow them?”

The rather damning instant media commentary was weakly defended by Dell executives who insisted that words like “Pro” and “Max” belonged to no one at all.

While this statement is certainly true, it certainly doesn’t stop anyone from seeing the usage pattern and wondering if Dell has simply copied Apple.

Clark also insisted that Dell actually put effort into coming up with the names and made the decision based on research from “tens of thousands of customers.” Of course, no one who has encountered the iPhone or Apple products before.

Dell PC Vice President Kevin Terwilliger also added that Dell’s approach is similar to Apple’s, which is to “lock” products into a simple brand. Although, apparently, with the intention that this tie-in would not be associated with Apple products.

Confidence that the company is doing the right thing also comes from CEO Michael Dell, who points to the need to attract a new wave of customers.

“The installed base is 1.5 billion computers and it is aging, and these computers will need to be replaced by innovations in artificial intelligence,” Michael Dell told reporters at a briefing. The new naming scheme will “make it easier for our customers to do business with us.”

This was said without irony, given that Apple has been well known for its use of artificial intelligence processing for many years, as well as the recent introduction Apple Intelligence.

But wait, there’s more

While the press conference report claims there are three main product tiers, Dell also continues to make things more complicated.

Apparently “Pro” isn’t enough for Dell.

The Dell, Dell Pro and Dell Pro Max lines denote performance, from basic work PCs to more “pro-grade performance” with the Pro and “maximum productivity” with the Pro Max.

While this chart certainly makes it easier to define performance levels, Dell then added more descriptive terms to be used across all three ranges.

Each lineup will include a basic starting point, plus “Plus” and “Premium” tiers representing “scalable performance” and “maximum portability and design,” respectively.

Dell’s naming convention will include laptop screen size numbers as well as subcategory levels. Keyword set names, such as “Dell Pro 14 Premium” or “Dell Pro Max 16 Plus.”

These Plus and Premium add-ons may make it a little difficult for consumers to understand, despite Dell’s intentions. The Dell Pro Max laptop is supposed to be the best, but having Plus at the end instead of Premium means it’s great, but not perfect.

For example, the Dell 14 Premium is not as good as the Dell Pro 14. But since some may consider “Premium” to be a more expensive term than “Pro”, there may be some confusion here.

Freed from the chopping block

While Dell is certainly chasing Apple in its core lineup, not its entire brand landscape is being disrupted.

Alienware, Dell’s premium gaming brand, will continue to offer consumers vibrant gaming PCs and laptops.

The alien-themed brand doesn’t appear to be using the new nomenclature at all, but instead using its own terms. This includes Aurora for desktop gaming PCs and a revival of Area 51 for laptops.

It’s unknown why Alienware will avoid Dell’s new iPhone-inspired tiered system, but it’s likely that its existing brand has enough clout to stick around for a while yet.

It’s all about Max

Dell has a point when it comes to Apple not owning the Pro and Pro Max terms. It’s true, Apple doesn’t own the Pro or Pro Max terms at all.

In a lengthy Apple report list of brandsthere are many products containing the phrase “Pro” or “Max”, including AirPods Pro And AirPods Max, Apple Pencil ProFinal Cut Pro and so on.

But while Apple doesn’t own the Pro or Max in a legal or licensing sense, Apple does own the terms in terms of public perception. Everyone understands that “Pro” means the top-end iPhone or MacBook models at the deep bottom.

Apple has been using these terms for quite some time, so it has a significant advantage in recognition. While other companies may use these terms as they see fit, consumers will instinctively look at a laptop labeled “Pro” and think, at least for a moment, about Apple hardware.

Perhaps Dell will “simplify” the situation by borrowing Apple’s names for its products. The cost of this is that Dell gives Apple a lot more unintended brand recognition.