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Dell CEO Tells All
zapatero writes "The San Francisco Chronicle has an enjoyable read with new Dell CEO Kevin Rollins. He has quite a critique of the HP acquisition of Compaq: 'They had a great, profitable printer business before. They still have a great, profitable printer business. ... Their profits are 70 to 80 percent from the printer business. So that's the area where the profit pool still lives. It's where it lived before. It's where it still is now. So I just ask, what's changed?'"
I live near a large HP facility (Boise, Idaho) and I've seen first hand the changes at HP. Brilliant engineers are being fired, and what used to be an emphasis on innovation and creativity has been replaced by a lust for short term profit to please the investors. I used to think HP was the most admirable company in tech, and maybe it was, but now... What goes around comes around though, I'm not expecting HP to succeed in the long run.
Vandemar.org
For the ignorant (like myself):
SS7 - Signalling System #7 is a set of protocols defined by ITU-T, specifically in the Q.7* set of documents, used to set up telephone calls. (from Wikipedia).
Himalay / NonStop - The NonStop servers, which sell for an average of more than $1 million a piece, are highly valued for their ability to handle thousands of simultaneous transactions and their capability to continue operating even if hit with multiple hardware failures. The robust computing systems are particularly favored by financial institutions and are used to run 15 of the world's largest stock exchanges as well as automated teller machine networks for some of the nation's largest banks. (from PCMag, 2002)
Parent is a very informative post - I didn't know about this other side of HP/Compaq!
As a "Regional Systems Support Engineer for Asia Pacific" some of the things we used to do for our customers were totally amazing in this day and age.
One thing that I remember doing for one my customers is shipping a part on a hired helecopter because it was the fastest way to get me the part and the customer was on a "DEC Protect/Recover All" contract, which mean NOTHING was too much trouble.
Those were the days.
`find / -name "*your_base*" -exec chown us:us {} \;`
Well, in a way HP's legacy as a good geek company is still around, but it now goes by the name Agilent.
Agilent is a spin off of HP (from 1999) that basically took everything but HP's computer/printer business.
Agilent today does what HP did in the 70's, such as test and measurement equipment, semiconductors, life science equipment, etc. Sadly, this is minus the calculator division, HP kept (then killed) that. Most cell phones today use parts made by Agilent.
One important piece is the R&D labs divisions. Agilent does a lot of fundamental R&D work these days in both the semiconductor and the software fields.
How much of the Bush $2T 2004 budget pays for corporations, and how much for humans? It's probably a lot better than 7.4% paid for corporate services. Especially when you include that $200B Iraq War.
--
make install -not war
Except for the ones Canon manufactured and HP assembled, rebranded, and sold.
how to invest, a novice's guide
Sorry for my fuzzy math here, the percentages are more like 84% individuals and 16% corporations.
" Dell makes more money selling PCs, etc at a low cost than HP does doing everything it does. "
y /hp/inde x.htm/ dell/in dex.htm
Actually not true. First a couple of links.
http://money.cnn.com/2004/05/18/technolog
http://money.cnn.com/2004/05/13/technology
Figured from may indicate that HP made 884 million and Dell made 731 million for the second quarter.
The analysts are worried because Dell's profit margins are shrinking while their revenue keeps growing.
"Oh, and IBM didn't transform itself by buying also-ran competitors."
Also not true. IBM bought lotus, informix, and a slew of other companies.
evil is as evil does
That a CEO is not personally responsible because his corporation is willing to "buy" that freedom from responsibility is not a valid argument and, if anything, makes it look like the government is on the take... that the government is willing to excuse you from personal responsibility as long as you submit to double taxation.
I would include a nice table showing everything for the lazy, but since stupid /. prevents that. How about this: over the last forty years, the Corporate Income Tax provided the following percentages of that years IRS collections:
in 2003, 10%
in 1993, 11.18%
in 1983, 9.85%
in 1973, 16.42%
As you can see, the percentages have held fairly steady over recent years, including "the last half-decade" (nice try, Bush hater). The big change in percentages happened back at the end of the 70's.
"+5 Interesting" my sweet fanny!
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
It used to be all my PC using friends recommended Dell. No one does anymore. At the word Dell everyone thinks crap. They are overpriced and underpowered. My friend ordered his Dell and it took 3 seperate attempts to actually get the thing to his house. They lost the computer twice. When he finally got it the cmos battery died within a week and the DVD drive failed. He hasn't gotten it fixed because, unlike Apple, you can't simply send the machine back in. They must come to you (as far as I'm aware), and being a high school student, he isn't home when techs are on duty. Don't get me started on the crap know as the Dell servers we have at work. The RAID array cards on those enjoy failing, and the repair techs don't actually work for Dell and have to do repairs for us we could very well do on our own.
You're not required to be a US company to be traded on a US Stock exchange.
Telekom Austria, Swisscom, Novartis, UBS and a lot more foreign companies are traded at NYSE.
You do of course have to follow SEC rules if you wish to be traded on an US exchange.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Although you are right that foreign companies can have a listing on a US exchange, the disclosure and corporate governance requirements for foreign listers are less than for US corporations. This in turn may disqualify some ERISA type accounts from investing in this type of security. So in order to maximise your exposure to a full range of US investors, you need the US registration and listing.
I suspect that this is not the reason that Dell is onshore, though. As a US company, they can get orders from the US government, and their brand would probably be damaged if they changed their domicile or registration to a non-US one.
Have you ever been to Mexico, China or India?
If you haven't, you don't know what corruption is.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I think this gives a good idea of how top-heavy the income tax system really is, especially in a society where wealth, and income, is very concentrated. This situation makes tax revenues very volatile, budgeting very difficult, and the top echelon very influential.
In regards to these quotes, Buffet is defending Berkshire, which was caught up in a little bit of Washington politics after the Washington Post published an editorial piece written by Buffet critical of Bushes tax policies.
"Berkshire, on your behalf and mine, will send the Treasury $3.3 billion for tax on its 2003 income, a sum
equaling 2½% of the total income tax paid by all U.S. corporations in fiscal 2003. (In contrast, Berkshire's
market valuation is about 1% of the value of all American corporations.) Our payment will almost certainly
place us among our country's top ten taxpayers. Indeed, if only 540 taxpayers paid the amount
Berkshire will pay, no other individual or corporation would have to pay anything to Uncle Sam. That's
right: 290 million Americans and all other businesses would not have to pay a dime in income, social
security, excise or estate taxes to the federal government. (Here's the math: Federal tax receipts, including
social security receipts, in fiscal 2003 totaled $1.782 trillion and 540 "Berkshires," each paying $3.3
billion, would deliver the same $1.782 trillion.)
Our federal tax return for 2002 (2003 is not finalized), when we paid $1.75 billion, covered a mere
8,905 pages. As is required, we dutifully filed two copies of this return, creating a pile of paper seven feet
tall."
post-war peak of 32% in 1952. With one exception (1983), last year's percentage is the lowest recorded
since data was first published in 1934.
Even so, tax breaks for corporations (and their investors, particularly large ones) were a major part
of the Administration's 2002 and 2003 initiatives. If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is
clearly winning. Today, many large corporations - run by CEOs whose fiddle-playing talents make your
Chairman look like he is all thumbs - pay nothing close to the stated federal tax rate of 35%."