Dell ditches 25,000 BlackBerry's for Windows Phone 7

Dell Inc. said it plans to move 25,000 BlackBerry employees over to Windows Phone 7 starting next week. The move is a direct shot at Research In Motion in order to help promote its own Dell Venue Pro, running Windows Phone 7, in a report by The Wall Street Journal.

Now that both Dell and RIM are competing head-to-head, the decision to move their 25,000 employees over to Windows Phone 7 is the obvious choice. This move is not only to help promote Dell's own brand of Windows Phone 7, but to help cut costs, by up to 25% in mobile communication servers needed to run expensive BlackBerry service.

Dell also plans to begin marketing their Windows Phone 7 handset to business clients within the next two weeks, attempting to get them to ditch their BlackBerry's, iPhone's and Android handsets to make a similar switch.

Research In Motion passes this off as nothing more than a publicity stunt, "we find it highly unlikely that they will actually save any money with this move and far more likely they were looking for a little free publicity," said Mark Guibert, vice president for corporate marketing.

This move by Dell may trigger other Microsoft affiliated companies to make a similar switch, which could help promote Windows Phone 7 as a business phone, rather than a personal device.