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Dell's Marketshare Decline Due to Intel?
timeOday writes "News.com reports that Dell's PC sales are growing more slowly than the overall PC market for the first time on record. Gartner's Charles Smulders blames Dell's decline on their allegiance to Intel, and cites Hewlett Packard's embrace of AMD as a key to their growing sales. Can Dell continue to shun AMD, or is a breakthrough imminent for the #2 chipmaker?"
Is it really Dell's allegiance to Intel, or is it market saturation?
Why gamers don't take them seriously. Hopefully they'll be content to let Alienware do their thing and won't try and foist Intel on them.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Hey, the markets move and shake, right? Consumer's do have some control over the market, or at least the /. crowd is finally making a dent? Consumers are -slowly- getting educated, but I think the big drive is that the "online generation" is beginning to have some purchasing power, and most know better when it comes to what they want, how much it is worth, and what it really does. My $0.02.
Why go fast when you can go anywhere? O|||||||O
Could it be because Dell sucks and people are sick and tired of calling tech support only to speak with someone they can barely understand from India who claims his name is "Bill".
The problem here is Intel doesn't have a processor that the public views as solid and powerful. They have a processor that fits that description (dual core mobile), but they try to push P4s at people instead.
Dell is only failing because they expect Intel to do all their work for them. If they want people to get back on board they'll have to convince them that their systems perform well.
Their models are so unlinked to the processors that they carry that this will be a disaster for dell to handle simply because they have a stupid branding scheme. Moving to AMD wont help dell, but solidifying their position will.
This whole summary is based on a false premise. I for one think it's absolutely absurd to suggest that following Hewlett Packard's business plan is a good idea. If you do that everyone will just think you're the other HP.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
From my personal experience as a consumer and as a tech HP/compaq computers are garbage. Dell computers are alright is slighty over priced while Sony and Apple are asthetically pleasing but over priced. If HP/compaq is gaining on Dell it must mean the consumers have gotten dumber and nothing more.
I still prefer to put my own together.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Dell has long been the leader because they have been able to ship easily configurable PCs quickly and dependably to their customers. Now anyone can do that. They used to offer premium discounts on their PCs. Now anyone can do that.
Dell has always used very marginal hardware in several levels of their lineup. Perhaps this is what has caught up with them. Another company who used to sell well until their reputation caught up with them was Packard Bell. If you keep shipping inferior product, at some point you will get called on it.
Now, does it hurt that they need to keep prices high in order to offer genuine Intel Inside PCs? You bet. But that's just a straw on the camel's back. It was the heavy load that broke the camel in the first place.
1) They feature "Satan Inside" (TM)
2) Their tech support people have horrible accents and you can't understand WTF they're saying
3) They fired the Dell Dude
4) PC prices have dropped so much that competitors like HP are almost as cheap as Dell, and often nicer
5) Frist Post
Choose one...
And I buy two HP computer this year both with AMD chips.
I buy a HP laptop, even if it doesn't have all the goodies (dvi out) I want, but it have the faster/cheaper/64bit/cleaner processor !
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
I believe it has more to do with Dells ailing reputation than it does not sticking to intel. The fact is the *quality* that was once associated with Dell isn't really there, and hasn't been for a long time, and consumers are wising up to this. Plus, there is some good competition out there for dell in the low end computer market. emachines, for example.
This is a case of faulty causation analysis on the part of the 'analyst'. Indeed, I'd go out and venture that it's intentional as well -- catch the wave 'man', bring up the AMD-Intel rivalry. Score some points with the higher ups as your name and the company's name spreads.
- Market saturation (as already mentioned)
- Related to market saturation, lack of compelling upgrade motivations (see also Vista/Longhorn)
- Decline in build quality of Dell machines
- Lower hardware standards (how can you still make consumer desktops with PCI cards in them)
- Evergrowing size of Dell operations with resultant negative: customer experience and vendor relations
- 'freeze' effect in anticipation of Longhorn/Vista
- Odd pricing schemes
All are (mihi) statistically significant contributors to sales decline, and, together, these 7 factors likely explain the bulk of the sales variance.
Chip sales Schmip sales. Of all the possibilities, to highlight processor selection in the report / slashdot headline is simply incendiary and pandering demagogery. (to the slashdot masses and likely to the submitters own predilections)
Dell is probably under some contract with Intel, breacking which will result either in loosing Intel completely or some costly law suit. I think at this point, Dell is aware of AMD and it's just beuracracy that holds them dowm.
Ummm...didn't AMD beat Intel in sales last year on their CPU? What makes them the #2 chipmaker? Last I heard, AMD was beating the pants off Intel and Intel was playing the chase game.
Personaly, I would never buy a Dell. I would also never buy an Alienware machine. Those things are way too overpriced. I built my own machine that at the time was as powerful and then some as Alienware's top machine for half the price. All you are paying for is the pretty case and a name.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
Dell has appeared to be far more expensive than eMachines/Gateway, Acer, and Compaq/HP for low-end desktops over the past year, even without shipping. These are no doubt low margin machines, but probably a high percentage of consumer retail sales. Dell's just not trying very hard at the low end.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
I once worked for a now defunct company in the UK (Mosaic Technology) that used to train people in sales channels on behalf of AMD on AMD processors during the early days of the Athlon processor, when it was very new and everyone was sceptical.
:D
I remember an AMD employee at the training saying a senior AMD exec had said that AMD would never sell to Michael Dell, but forget the reason. Anyone?
I still have a (non working) sample of an Athlon in a special plasic AMD box somewhere! And hundreds of their pens
In the part of the gaming world where I reside, Dells are regarded as somewhat of a joke. This has mostly sprung up around the general unreliability of their customer service, but it's also just that Dell products are never quite up to spec. Even if they are in fact okay, it may be due to this growing stereotype about Dell computers as well.
They've been getting really really good pricing from Intel for staying loyal. That said the 2nd tier vendors have been making in roads against Dell with opteron servers. (Due as to power, and thermals as performance.) Once Intel's newer next-gen cpus (relatives of the Duo) come out things will change. The real question is will AMD's lawsuit against Intel prevent Intel from playing hard ball once the next gen cpus are out.
IANALBIPOOGL (I am not a Lawyer, but I play one on GrokLaw.)
I think there are natural limits on growth. Every entity that grows has to fight entrophy. The larger something becomes, the more difficult it is to fight against entrophy. We see the same thing with biological evolution, with the growth and calapse of empires and religions. It just doesn't make sense (and I would argue it is not desirable), that Dell would contantly grow it's share of the market forever (and, of course, eventually it would have a monopoly if it did).
The question I have, is how could Dell sales NOT slow down?
I'd chalk it up to worsening customer service and support first. I know people who had been Dell users since win 98, but after purchasing a Dell within the last couple of years wont do it again because of their customer support and they dont last like they used to. I dont think the average buyer would actively seek and AMD over Intel, they would just pick AMD if it was cheaper.
That's not a Dell-specific problem. Name a major computer vendor that doesn't do that. HP, Gateway, Dell... it's all the same. Personally, I still like Dell's support and warrenty plans and have had great luck calling their support number, but for myself, I'd always build, so it's rather egal.
psst.... huh.. it's *moron*. good thing you posted AC.. ;-)
News.com reports that Dell's PC sales are growing more slowly than the overall PC market for the first time on record.
Decline? The summary indicates Dell's sales continue to grow, so how is that a decline? Not growing as fast as you used to doesn't mean you're shrinking. Also, if the growth of the PC market is accounted for by the entry of new companies, Dell could still be growing faster than any other single competitor and still not grow as the market overall.
This isn't to say that Dell doesn't suck, only that the numbers game being used here is a tad misinformative.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
Dell is useless for servers without opterons. We buy from Sun and HP now.
You cannot grow foreverfaster than your market.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Dell has sold well because they overprice their machines, then offer "huge discounts" to their consumers, particularly their laptops. Anyone who spends more than 5 minutes looking for information on a Dell can find these discounts.
What the public isn't aware of, however, is that these "huge discounts" just bring the price down to what it should have been in the first place. But they don't know that. They just see that they are getting a $2000 machine for $1250. And those poor souls (pun intended) who never find them are seriously overpaying.
As for the slow down - I hope it is because the public is catching on to this, though Dell's customer service reputation probably isn't helping either. I seriously doubt Joe Sixpack is purposely not buying Dell because they don't sell AMD. I would imagine he cares more about price and support than what exactly is under the hood.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
The thing people forget about bleeding-edge style computer saavy, technocrats is that they have market spill-over value. While it's true that not everyon will be like the most informed geeks in the world, and most will likely think Intels are great, that's what everyone has, let's face it: people who know nothing about computers ask for advice from others.
I've been personally responsible for many system purchases that didn't involve the Intel tax. In all of these cases the computer I recommended worked just as well for the person as it would've with an Intel (if not better), and they saved money. So while there might be only a few geeks that know which processor is more worth your buck, they are the ones making the buying decisions for others in a lot of cases. Dell never accounts for this factor. And in short, it's performance/price ratio stupid... At least offer your customers a choice.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
I bought an HP desktop so I could get a decent AMD64 machine, it's been quite good. In looking at laptops with AMD64 the only real option was again HP. This combined with the fact that HP appears to have a clue about linux and open source sealed the deal.
http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=OTI0L DgsLGhjb25zdW1lcg==
y aWwgICAgLDIwMDYsaG5ld3M=
~~~~ On Dell's Web site, the XPS series is marketed directly to gamers and high-performance power users. The XPS series is under the gaming tag, and they claim right on the front page of the Dell.com site that, "We take your gaming experience as seriously as you do." The next line: "XPS show just how serious we are" is more telling. If the Dimension XPS400 is any indication, Dell considers computer gamers a joke. Harsh, yes. But we think it's accurate. ~~~~
http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MTgxNTgsQXB
~~~~~ f you've read our [H] Consumer evaluation of Dell's XPS 400, you'll remember that "value-added" software got in the way of our everyday use of the machine. Well, I've recently been made aware of a third party's attempt to remedy this situation for those of you that may not want to mess around with uninstalling unnecessary software yourself, or would rather have an unattended way of completing the job. It's a sad state of affairs when you buy a new computer these days and it comes pre-loaded with a ton of garbage software that brings your new machine to a crawl. If anyone's bought a Dell PC in the last few years, you probably know what I'm talking about. ~~~
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
I had circa 20 noteboks and HP/compaq are very good if you choose carefully ...
...
...
You can buy garbage, you can buy great stuff - it is not much different than with other vendors.
The point is to know what to buy - I am a happy owner of ZE4100, my brother has NC6220 - both with
amazing 1400x1050 screens.
The problem was getting them cheap - but with some shopping we both got them for over $400 less than hpshopping.com
price. And both were deals unmatchable by any Dell offer
But if you look at brand only - you will buy crap from Dell as well as I did coupel years ago
Dell bought Alienware. Apple is using Intel chips and the x86 architecture. Mac OS can now be hacked to run on intel whiteboxes. Mac hardware can now triple boot (Windows, Mac OS, Linux) In recent tests, AMD Athlon X2 Intel Core Duo. Microsoft is ... well, pretty much the same..
So I'd say anything is possible.
"Everything worth innovating today will go to court tomorrow."
As a Dell Premium Business Partner in Africa, I can tell you that they are growing a lot more than HP in this market. I've yet to see someone ask for AMD processor, probably because we are in a hot country. Even my HP customer ask for Intel base Processor.
Grrr. That's supposed to be X2 (less than!) Intel Core Duo.
"Everything worth innovating today will go to court tomorrow."
Dell machines aren't very upgradeable. Their business model supports the idea of a disposable product.
Anecdotal evidence: a friend had a Dell P2. A vanilla version of that board supported a P3 processor, but Dell's BIOS gave him an error message saying it did not. We suspected that it was because Dell wanted to sell more P3 machines (higher margin) than proc upgrades.
Dell's decline is due to its denunciation by the dumped Dell Dude.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I blame Dell!
I work on a lot of systems for people and I have worked on several Dells, both laptop and desktop, over the last few months.
One of the biggest problems I have with Dell is all the crapware that ships with Dell machines. From the latest version of Musicmatch (that just didn't work) to Norton Internet Security (blecch! machine seemed 5X faster after it was uninstalled) to the downright spyware/adware that Dell installs to sell (I notice the cartridge on your inkjet is low, want to connect to Dell.com to order more? from the print driver) to all of the 90 day "trial" software that you really don't own but can't completely uninstall. The last 4 Dell systems I worked on, I basically cleaned off and reinstalled a "clean" version of Windows. The machines were faster, more stable and stayed the hell off of the Internet unless I told them to go there.
A second big problem is Dell tech support. The complaints about unintelligible Indian accents and names like Brian are very true, but when you can understand them, they are not very helpful! For instance, one customer they would not even talk to about any problems until he reloaded the system. This trashed all of the software he had loaded, reloaded all of the crapware that I had unloaded (which was probably the point) and had absolutely nothing to do with the problem he called about. When he was finally allowed to ask about his problem, they sold him another 512M of RAM which they insisted would fix the problem (but didn't) and left him with another bill from me to put it all back the way it was. He no longer calls Dell support, he calls me, and he swears it will be a cold day in hell before he buys another Dell.
Whoever blames Dell's problems on supplying Intel-only needs to order a Dell and see what is really happening!
It almost seems like an unnatural progression but it is possible.
Back in the 8088s - 286 days IBM was King of the PCs By the 386-486 Gateway Became king then Pentium Dell took over. It wasn't because of price At the time each respective vender was priced a bit more the the rest. Then after they became king of the mountain the only way they could still compete (More) is by price shaving which lowered its quality so The next guy came in selling a higher quality product at a slightly higher price and the customers were happy with it and by word of mouth they became #1.
I remember people going I am going to get a Gateway because I heard they are reliable for their 486. Then by 1999 I hear people go Next Time I am going to get a Dell because this Gateway is a piece of crap (after having to swap 3 drives and a motherboard) In a year. Now Dells quality is getting more and more shaky and their support is getting more cheap. So who will be the next Dell? Right now the best I am hearing that Apple Computers while may cost a bit more are of better quality and with the Intel Chips you can put windows on it as a fail safe emotional device. But It could also be HP/Compaq turn if they get on the Gun and made better PCs. I originally had AlienWare as the next Dell but Dell just bought them so who knows. But I don't think AMD has anything to do with it, it is about Quality not manufactures.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I had been recomending Dell to my work, friends and family in the past, but this has changed... My work laptop is a HP Turion64 as we have decided to use the 64bit capable chips for our development. Before this most of our purchases at work were Dell. I recently bought a machine for home, yet again an HP becuase I wanted the Athelon 64 bit chip. 2 weeks ago, I saw pretty good deal for a mobo+cpu combo at Fry's and went for it, yet again an Athelon 64. All in all, Intel's in my home are the older stuff, and I wont be buying any more PCs anytime soon... yet, I am considering buying an Apple Mini Mac CoreDuo, and that will be the only intel inside my machines... and thats not because I want to buy Intel, but because, its an Apple outside! I would rather buy from Apple now than from Dell if I want an Intel solution. I get a really compact machine that can run OSX as well as Windows or Linux. No more Dells for me!
So for me, Dell lost my account for its allegiance to Intel. In otherwards, Dell chose to take away my choice of what CPU I would like in the PCs I buy, and I took my business elsewhere. I think Dell can learn a valuable lesson from all this... that trying to restrict customer choice by providing a single choice is not going to make them a winner. Now, only if they take this lesson to heart and also give the option to users to buy a naked PC or one that the user can request to have Linux pre-installed, so that we wont have to pay the Microsoft tax for an OS that gets dumped the first time the machine is booted up, Dell might win the hearts and minds of the developers that ultimately affect a lot of corporate purchases.
I just bought an Inspiron E1505 laptop, and I don't agree about the shoddy product. It's better built than my last Toshiba, and the HP/Compaqs I've had at work.
That being said, what did disturb me was the ordering process. Dell used to pride itself on having good knowledge of it's supply chain and streamlining their delivery.
I ordered on March 23rd. The expected delivery date when I first ordered was April 10. By the time I got the email confirmation it had become April 18th. Dell has a website where you can track the status of your order. It went from prepping to build to testing all in one day.
Then it sat in the 'boxing' stage for 3 days.
The laptop finally arrived on April 5th. Ahead of their initial schedule.
But I found it disturbing that they really had no idea of how long it would take. In reading the notebookforums dell boards, there are others who have ordered different models who are still waiting 2-3 months later, because of a shortage of some part, or an engineering flaw, etc.
I believe part of the reason for the change, is that all assembly(at least for the Inspiron laptops) is done in Malaysia. It took 3 days to box the laptop because they had to fly it back from over there.
Anyway, just interesting. I had not purchased a Dell for myself in 10 years, and while I like it and still feel I got a better deal than the competition. I will have to say the process left much to be desired.
In my experience, HP might be a better choice for a home computer, but it would take a lot to make me choose an HP over Dell in the business world. Good design, good support, fast shipping times... My boss once wanted me to buy PCs for the office with AMD chips (because his son-in-law works in marketing for AMD). HP estimated six weeks to ship the machines while comparable Intel systems from Dell shipped in less than a week.
Maybe with Fiorino gone, things are changing, but HP was once a company I trusted to produce quality hardware. Now, it doesn't matter whether it's printers, PCs, servers or anything else, HP is the LAST company I look to.
One example: I bought an HP multimedia USB keyboard from someone on Ebay. Because it was a keyboard that shipped with a 'consumer' system, and HP only supported Win '98 and XP on their 'consumer' systems, there was no windows 2000 driver support for the features on this keyboard. Later, I upgraded to XP, but HP at that time had no drivers available for download for the keyboard.
Another: windows-only printers and printers that when you try to locate drivers on HPs site, you are told that they are no longer available, for printers that are less than 5 years old.
A few years ago, my opinion was the opposite... Dell servers simply couldn't start to compete with Compaq. They were beefed-up PCs. It's funny, because now the reverse is true. Their servers and office PCs are fantastic machines, but they're playing catch-up in the home, as customizations, see-thru cases, light-up fans, etc, have become more popular. The business world IS saturated, as well as tired of having to upgrade. Now that XP has been around for a while, and nothing new is on the horizon for the near-term, I think businesses are going to operate in maintenance mode until Vista and the next upgrade cycle begins. That's going to hurt Dell more, because they're the largest office PC supplier.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
Could it be their shoddy build quality and crap customer service? After six months my Dell laptop's screen started to feel loose and wobbly. The two times I've contacted their customer service through their website (which says they aim to reply in 24 hours) I've had response times of three days and TWO WEEKS!! Out six people I know who purchased Dell laptops they've all had to go back for repairs of some sort of another.
So, DELL SUCKS!!
Dell has grown fat and lazy, uses inferior componants, and their exporting tech support to India leading to overall sub-standard product. Naaaahhh....
Dell just sucks now. It used to be that the only time I serviced a Dell would be for either spyware/virus issues or for upgrades.. now it's almost always for break/fizes. Even when I talk to an end user I hear the same Customer Service horror stories that hear from HP customers. Just yesterday one customer told me "Chris" from India offered her two $100 Dell credits that could not be used together for her to purchase more Dell garbage. This after her fourth hardware failure in six months.
> psst.... huh.. it's *moron*.
Actually, "moran" is a commonly-used sarcastic spelling.
It comes from a famous photo of a not-too-bright-looking guy holding a hand-lettered sign on which he tells people to "Get a brain, morans".
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/ images/blpic-moran.htm
Whilst I agree, never ever EVAR give this advice to anyone. Your buddy will soon have a $500 pile of incompatible parts that he can't get working... he'll be looking at you. So now, you have to figure out WTF he did and fix it. Any time thereafter you are responsible for whatever quirck or spyware or whatever happens to that computer. My advice to everyone about computers is now, and will always be the same.
"Dells are great. You should buy one today."
Dude, no one's getting a Dell.
In my opinion, Dell has sacrificed manufacturing quality and support for greater profit margins. The cost-outs of Indian tech support and price deals from Intel seem great on paper, but you can put a lot on paper that doesn't work in reality. It doesn't help that average consumer is beginning to realize that clock speed can be deceiving. AMD has been successful because of a combination of improving old designs (recycling technology) and innovative designs for new processors. If Intel could do the same with their cores, we probably wouldn't have an article to write about.
"Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
I understand that Dell would like you to simply replace the box more often, that's in their own interest. But it's in my own interest not to recommend Dell to people to whom I provide "informal" tech support.
I am not a crackpot.
Dell should just close up shop and return the money to the shareholders.
Or at least redesign their gawdawful laptops with the wrist-warmers. Jeez you can cook an egg on those things...
As the title says, Dell's marketshare declined, not its sales. They are growing slower than the market. What is so hard to understand about that?
All they care about is if it runs the apps they want it to run. That's true for business and true for the home user as well. There are a few people out there who care what's inside, but I believe it's very very few.
I believe the nature of the problem is in two areas:
1. I don't see Dell commercials on TV lately. Is it just me?
2. Dell outsources a great deal of their support out of the country. It's a HUGE annoyance to customers. They tried it with corporate support once. Corporations started switching to HP and IBM. Dell reversed its decision quickly. But non-business support is still in another country.
Those are the things people care about. And that's where Dell is screwing up.
You may consider getting one if you really need DVI. Mine was $150.
In the last year I have either purchased or helped friends / family purchase 7 computers (mix of laptops and desktops). Three came from Dell and four from HP. It seemed to me that people ended up choosing the brand based more on whether they'd seen more Dell or more HP commercials.
Dells:
Every single one showed up after it was promised (1 showed up 3 weeks late)
2 of the 3 had hard drive crashes
Myself or Friend / Family had to call tech support 4 times and reached Indians every single time.
After going through normal annoying, basic troubleshooting, they agreed to replace parts and send new drives. 1 time, they sent a technician who promptly formatted the hard drive which had been pre-imaged and then asked for the OS disk, which Dell didn't provide. Friend had to wait another week for a replacement.
2 of the 3 seemed over priced to me
All were Intel
HPs:
Every single one guaranteed a relatively long delivery date and then dramatically beat the time frame
1 laptop had a battery problem
1 desktop had a TV tuner problem
Myself or Friend / Family called in three times. Got one American and 2 Indians named "Bob". After going through the normal basic annoying troubelshooting, HP turned around with next day delivery of new parts. Very impressed.
2 AMD (1 Turion and 1 AMD X2 4200).
2 Intel
Both intel systems seemed over-priced to me.
AMD systems seemed to be well-priced.
Dell is no exception. Indeed, I think compared to many other vendors they are not that bad in terms of actual hardware. Their support on the other hand is absolutely horrible. I have had several customers who have had to order replacement parts and it is a pain. I can expect to spend on hour on the phone to order a replacement Windows CD or a heat sink retention assembly. That time gets billed to my customers. Parts replacement up until recently was handled in the US but that too has been offshored to India.
Of course hardware replacement is the exception rather than the rule, so generally, I am still comfortable recommending Dell with the caveat that they are better to pay for my support services than try to call Dell.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Easy to find out. Sell one competative, AMD-based, Dell supported, model and see how it turns out.
A rational business would trial this.
A rich business can afford to test this.
Only a stupid business would avoid this.
I mean, it's not like asking Ford to put Chevy engines into their Mustangs because that's not what consumers are demanding.
Consumers are demanding AMD processors. I know this because that's what I'm demanding.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Is Intel forcing Dell to include Intel chips? It seems to me that this decision is being made by Dell management rather than Intel. Is there evidence to support predatory pricing by Intel that affects Dell moreso than any other manufacturer? If not, I don't think we can set the blame on Intel. Rather the blame lies on Dell.
So the headline should read Dell's Marketshare Decline Due to Dell, no?
But in any case, I think there are other explanations for Dell's slow growth, chief of which is marketshare. Dell's current US shipments rose 0.2% reducing their marketshare to 32%. In contrast HP's US shipments rose marketshare rose 15% to a marketshare of 19%. It seems to me that if you're already shipping 1 out of every three PCs being purchased in the US, it's a good deal harder to increase your number of sales than if you're selling 1 out of 5 or 1 out of 6.
because they sell to a whole range of the market.. as to your claim that the discounts bring the price down to what it 'should be' let's look at todays cheapy..
$359.00 pIV 2.53 512mb ram 160gb hd Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability 17 inch E773 (16 inch viewable) Conventional CRT
match that- at any retailer for NEW equipment, with a 1 year warranty..
I've seen similar or lesser with 15"lcd's...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Their laptops have always been rebranded, upcharged imports. Do the research and you can get much better prices on the same exact hardware by buying it directly from the importer.
If you want a desktop, however, I don't know why you wouldn't just build one.
So I guess I just don't see why anyone buys from Alienware. Because he/she loves chartreuse?
I don't think anyone needs to worry about gamers taking them seriously because, to be honest, there's often no reason for companies to take gamers seriously. I'm not trying to troll here, but a lot of gamers out there know a lot less about computers than they think they do. The conventional wisdom about computer manufacturers that is held in gaming circles rarely reflects reality. Give them the vague impression that they're getting primo hardware, and they'll hand you $3000.
Gamers can be very stupid. Truth hurts.
Does anyone notice that AMD is a MAJOR Slashdot sponsor? This link is on every Slashdot page.
No, I will not work for your startup
psst! "moran" is a farkism
Godspeed AMD
Could it be because Dell sucks and people are sick and tired of calling tech support only to speak with someone they can barely understand from India who claims his name is "Bill". :)
Silly, it's because DELL failed to embrace AMD. I have personally benchmarked Intel & AMD chips using C++ Conformance suite(Perennial, Plumhall & Dinkumware) and AMD simply rocked. FYI, HP customer support is also in India
What can kill Dell is trying to become too much like Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is not the home of quality products.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
As a fairly well-known technician hereabouts, I'm often asked for advice about purchasing systems, particularly laptops, etc.
Back in the day, I might have recommended Dell. Their laptops were fairly well features, reliable, and competetively priced. Note that the AMD/Intel difference might place into the last factor nowadays...
Anyhow, my more recent experience with Dell has been just as indicated: they've ridden their previously decent reputation for awhile but now their crappy call-centres, incompatible parts, and not-so-great quality is starting to bite them. Dell computers are getting more and more cheap nowadays, and that's in quality as well as price.
Now let's look at some of the others:
- IBM systems (up until Lenovo, who I don't have too much experience with recently) are generally reliable but less-featured (esp with the small HDD sizes)... still I'd say they are or were good for the office types who wanted a system that would keep on ticking.
- I haven't had many problems with Toshiba laptops, other than the gazillion little tray icons that the have loading at startup to control the touchpad/wireless/burner/etc settings. I turn most of the unnecessary ones off though, and lots of laptops have 'em... so no biggy. The newer laptops seem a bit more thin/plasticy though so I'll be keeping an eye on them, but they've been good so far other than a few here at the office that have been shitkicked (big big scuffing marks).
- HP: Well, I'm using one now. I've got one at home. The home model (ZD7000) has a built-in defect wherein it doesn't like having two sticks of RAM in with high-memory graphics/etc applications (spontaneous reboots). Not great, but that's the only model where I've seen that issue and haggling with HP eventually scored me a free 1GB stick of RAM for that laptop. It works fine for me, and despite being lugged around regularly it's been durable. My office-style work compaq (NX8220) aside from giving me nightmares configuring the ATI graphics card, has been both reliable and durable as well. AMD64 processors in the newer compaqs (and me being a linux user) scores personal points and recommendations for other linux users (such as at work), but not recommendations for the windows users. Compaq laptops also were known to be not great in quality before, but that seems to have quite improved with HP making them.
- Acer: You get what you pay for. Acer's have quite a lot of features for your buck. I've also seen generations spanning three years that had consistant power unit/modulator issues, and quite a few with screen burnout. However, I might add that I do have a (non-laptop) Acer LCD at home, and it's holding up nicely, so maybe they're improving in that area... however the plasticy feel and the rumours I've heard about HDD burnout make me tend to say "whatever you get, try to avoid Acer" to most people who ask advice.
- Sony: When you buy Sony, you're buying a brandname. And proprietary parts. And a sinking brandname. Overpriced and underperforming are usually two good words
Now, back to desktops. I haven't seen too many Dells explode lately but when I do look in them I find relatively cheap parts (motherboard) and massive compatability issues with standard parts. Floppy drives won't fit properly behind the happy little Dell bezels, power supplies can be funk or custom, and sometimes even PCI/etc cards don't seem to go in right. Sure, you can buy a cheap Dell machine, but upgrading or adding/repairing any parts is oftimes a major pain.
I wouldn't actively recommend against Dell, but I'd still advise caution to potential Dell buyers, and that's a step down from the days when I happily promoted how my little Dell laptops kept on kickin' (hell, some of the older P-II era ones are outlasting the more current gens)
You can on
That is what should concern everyone. If Dell's success is tied to Intel's success and roadmap, so is Apple's. They are intel only, but once again a doublestandard arises amongst the people on slashdot, where Dell intel exclusivity is a sign of evil and Apple's intel exclusivity is smart decision making. Conroe / Woodcrest and beyond are good products and I hope like all consumers and enthusiasts AMD keeps it interesting. I just wouldn't bet against intel. So, perhaps, Dell is suffering a little bit now do to it's exclusivity with Intel. Will it affect overall revenues and earnings though? We won't know until May 18th. Dell's market is 85% business / gov't. Those customers want reliability and fast replacement of parts, good support. Which Dell delivers. Dell is revamping its consumer line and the more expensive machines, XPS, come with different support options. Finally, Dell is focusing on profitability. Some customers, the very low end, are probably in a business sense not worth having. They would in effect cost the company more in support costs and repair costs than a customer of higher caliber. Consumers wanted the cheapest machines possible, Dell delivered, but it had to do so at the expense of technical support. The average selling price of a PC went from 3000 dollars in the early 90s to 600 dollars today and the software options got infinitely more complex and the users got infinitely more pc-illiterate. Used to be all you had to worry about was tweaking config.sys and autoexec.bat. Now you have to worry about 15 different methods of connecting to the internet. Wordprocessors that are more complex than the spaceshuttle. etc... Something had to give. People's expectations of support stayed the same. Consumer wise, people wanted a hand held whether the company made money on the deal or not. Believe you me, it isn't just Dell that offers support like this. HP, Apple, Lenovo, et al are the same. I am convinced consumers are best off buying Mom and Pop where they can bring their system in for assistance and have someone they know help them / educate them. Then as they become more saavy and computer literate they can buy from the OEMs. Kind of like a graduation scale. Dell should go after the 2nd and 3rd time buyers that have figured out all the quirks of computing and just want a reliable, cheap, fast machine. Dell also should focus on increasing its b2b and gov't sales and they will end up just fine.
Geez folks it's what ... 20 screws and 8 parts. Why would you have a stranger do this simple thing?
... Standards and Practices !
PenGun
Do What Now ???
Some are surmising that the purchase of Alienware is an attempt to 'get their feet wet' with AMD, aside from picking up revenue from the gaming market. Should be interesting to see how it works out.
Laptops seem to be the hot market nowadays. For desktops Dells seem to be getting pretty cheap, but really I'd steer clear of most of those branded systems as the components in any seem to be a combination of weird, cheap, and incompatible with standard components.
However, my experience with HP/Compaq is that quite a few laptop models are actually pretty good... and compaq has come up in quality from what it was in the laptop market.
Most businesses are in the business of making profit, not of making market share. The article implies that Dell is making a big mistake by sticking to Intel, but that need not be the case. If sticking to Intel means lower price per CPU it could mean higher profit, even if the volume and market share suffers. Tor
So, Dell's sales slow down "because of allegience to Intel", and yet Apple's appear to be increasing for exactly the same reason. Sounds like Gartner have been taking lessons from John C. Dvorak in how to make random statements that do not reflect reality.
"She's furniture with a pulse"
In the mid-nineties buying a dell was easy. You went to the back of any major magazine that appealed to a 50K+ person and there were three prices, three machines. Dell was extremely competitive on the specs people cared about. Dell always had the newest fastest chip at least a month or two ahead of everyone else so if you cared about performance of the chip, RAM, or HD, and without building your own machine, you chose a Dell.
Two things are happening. First, if you have any technical capacity you build your own becuase it is way easier, way cheaper, and I find, makes for way more reliable higher performing systems.
The second thing is that the Dell marketing pages I get every month are ridiculously hard to understand. A novice could nearly build a machine in the time it takes to sort through all the content in the dell pamphlet. It's as though they have a deparment of monkeys that make collages of random computer ads.
That's about Dell's sales. But, and similar to other posters, it also seems like Dell's supply chain is moving a la HP, i.e. totally retarded, unpredictable, and over """optimized""" to the point of no-one knowing what is going on.
Fairly recently, a week or so before christmas. I ordered a dell Inspiron 9300, Ran me 2 grand minus a $750 rebate. The only problem I've had with it is a fairly bad burn in, that i'm quite honestly too lazy to worry about right now. Maybe sometime over the summer when I'm not so busy all the time I'll give dell's tech support a try. Kindof dreading that quite honestly.
extra knowledge. thanks to /. the internet reveals its mysteries to me.
can wait to impress the missus later on this evening at happy hour... look a' me go! if one reply to me with fark off you n00b, i'll marry her. ... well.. i'll make a proposition.. *fingers cross anxiously waiting*
I have purchased 5 Dells over the last 5 years for personal use but to Dell I am not a good customer. If I were a good customer I would get good earth english support. By earth english support I mean when I am asked to "push the F1 button" and I say "Ok I have pushed the F1 buttton" the reply should not be "No No No I said you have to push the F1 button". This exchange went on for 5 minutes. I did not know how to rephrase the statement to get the support person to understand that I was pushing the F1 button not the F1 button. I am treated like crap by Dell support for buying 5 Dells in 5 years. I guess I would be a good customer if I had bought "5 Dells in 5 years instead". BYE BYE DELL!!!
Telecommuting! What about socialization?
Wow, It's amazing to read these forums and see the shrewd analysis that goes on here. *Sarcasm intended*
Look, Intel's market share went down. AMDs went up. For the first time AMD outsold Intel in the desktop market. DELL only sells Intel PCs. Therefore, DELLs market went down as well most likely due in part to their allegiance to only Intel. All those people who were buying the AMD based systems didn't buy DELLs. Therefore, it certainly didn't help DELLs market share.
Anyone else follow now?
Yes, there are of course other factors but when you say that DELL grew slower than the market that takes into account market saturation or PCs lasting longer or any other issues affecting the overall market. Market saturation should affect all vendors roughly equally as should PCs lasting longer and wouldn't be a reason for DELL specifically selling less units unless you want to argue that DELLs PCs last longer than vendor Xs PCs or that DELL is the only vendor selling PCs. So, if DELL grew slower than the market it was due to other issues than ones that also affect the overall market.
So again, anyone else follow now?
Yes, Support could be an issue and DELL has taken a major hit by outsourcing support to non-English speaking technicians for home users and in most cases with little technical training/ability. The rest of the industry has too but I've seen more talk about DELL's issues with this than other vendors like Compaq/HP(*Gag*) or Gateway. So that could be a factor. So this could be an issue. HEY! Know someone buying a DELL? Buy from the Small Business division. They usually have just as good deals if not better power/price and as of now you call the USA for support.
Yes, marketing could be part of the issue. Dell continues the direct marketing method and other vendors like HP/Compaq sell through retailers. Perhaps, a lot of the sales in the current market are going to people who want to see the PC on the shelf before they purchase it. It certainly isn't that people aren't aware of the DELL brand. Everyone who would consider buying a PC has at least heard of DELL. Haven't they? It sure seems like it.
As for the others saying things like, Apple's share appears to be going up because of switching to Intel. I'd only say it'd be hard for Apple's share to go down much more and have them stay in the Desktop PC business. If their IPod wasn't selling so well I'm not sure if they'd be able to weather the change from PowerPC to X86. After going from OS 9 to OS X they have only like 1.8% of the overall desktop market and I don't know if that figure even includes the number of PowerPC Macs that were sold to run Linux on.
If you support a lot of customers that use Dell, you can actually get parts directly through this site: http://warrantypartsdirect.dell.com/us/Program/ind ex.asp I get parts with next day shipping.
:)
You're billing someone for being on the phone... not sure if you'd still want to do it though.
For a short time only... Try your tests again after the launch of Conroe - on both server and desktop AMD are in deep shit when Intel's Core stuff is fully rolled out, shortly after July from what I'm reading on the usual sites.
On the other hand, if your company has 17% of the market, and everybody else has smaller pieces, then it's really really hard to grow.
Basic arithmetic.
Most consumers probably don't care what brand CPU they have. I've even been known to tell some people that Intel would be better for them. So I know _my_ shopping habits, nor those of like-minded "techno-geeks", will effect the entire market trend of a company like Dell. But I suppose it could be one factor.
After owning an HP Pavillion, never again, and working with Gateways and Dells at college and now work I can't find a difference in any of them. I repaired students PCs at college for 3+ years and saw no real trend of any brand showing up more than others. Dells tended to produce more calls, but more students owned them. The only PCs that were 'rare' were Sony machines (and Apples), granted they both were in more limited quanities due to their price, but they did seem to have better staying power. After my HP mistake, I built my own and recommend it to anyone. Dell may only be slightly worse off b/c of no AMD support, the market is slowing and AMD sales are increasing somewhat b/c they are the better processor and sadly enough ppl are FINALLY realizing it. Go with an AMD.
Does anyone really think that Dell's market knows the difference?
Great idea, and when I have the employees/business to qualify and make it work we will probably go that route.
However, at the moment, we don't have the minimum number of dell certified technicians to qualify for the program.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Dells laptops are cheap and they are horridly made. I have an acer tha tI am extremely impressed with. The only thing that I can't upgrade on it is the video card (wich i had to get an integrated intel vi card ). Even the pentium m cpu can be upgraded in it. IT has great build quality and awesome features. Its also about 2-3 pounts lighter and an inch thinner then the dell equivalents. For business puposes there workstations offer awesome tech support. I call them up say I hae a bad video card and they ship a new one no questions asked. There home section is horrid. My next desktop machine will probably be a mac.
Every brand has its weaknesses. Depends on what you want, but IBM if you don't need blazing speed (or bigger drives), Toshiba tends to be good overall, and so far recent HP's have a decent track record.
I bought one of the excellent Dell 2405FPW flat screen LCD monitors for myself over Christmas - I was (and still am) really impressed with it (truly fantasic - 1920x1200 native, super bright ... over 2 million defect free pixels, 5 inputs &c... really nice to use) and on the basis of my recommendation we have bought several at work (about a dozen so far and have just ordered more).
l .aspx?TabPage=producthighlights&sku=520-10437&spag enum=&category_id=5961&brandid=56&k=&c=uk&l=en&cs= ukdhs1&mnf=&prst=&prEnd=&mnfsku=&orderby=&searchty pe=&pageb4search=&page=productlisting.aspx&instock =&refurbished=
Today I was checking out the prices for a Soundbar for it - it's a set of basic stereo speakers that clips onto the bottom of the monitor.
Details here:
http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/ProductDetai
(sorry if the link is b0rked - blame slashdot b-)
I'm in the UK (if that matters) - when I check the product from home, it's £35.25, when I check from my work PC it's £20.
WTF? Is this normal? It's almost twice the price!
I guess I'll be ordering it from work b-)
Cheers all.
When I reach someone named "Bob" over a static-filled line who talks like Apu, I just ask them for the telephone number to the support located in the United States. If they don't connect me to someone in the U.S. I will start calling any corporate numbers I can find demanding to speak with an English-speaking support. It usually works. Try it sometime.
In the past, I have been a big fan of Dells 1650, 2650, 1750 servers and have purchased many. Great server performance and hard drive configurations. But the last year and a half I haven't bought any and instead went with an HP AMD dual core and Western Scientific AMD dual core for servers. The overall specifications and configurations can't be beat by Dell. HP has better monitoring compared to Dell for Enterprise class. And Western Scientific has much better hard drive configurations for the 1u, 2u and 3u servers. One can have 4 drives in the 1u, so I can mirror the os and the data disks(500GB). This makes for a very versatile server and small footprint. Or huge capacity for the 3u which has 12 drives and 5TB.
WhatMeWorry.
Dell's problems are more than AMD related. They need to STOP treating customers like they are a nuisance. You know what? I'm just going to stop there.
With Conroe launching this summer or fall, assuming it lives up to its early hype, Dell just needs to hold out for a little longer. I doubt we'll see AMD in Dell's, not including Alienware, anytime soon.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
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The last couple of Dell servers I bought were rock solid.
But for desktops and laptops, their quality isn't what it used to be, their supply chain isn't what it used to be, and their support is nowhere close to world class (at least on non-servers).
And we can get servers that are just as good elsewhere for better prices-- AMD-based servers, which means les power consumption and heat. I suspect they still rule in certain classes of servers, but they don't for anything we buy. Sad.
Speaking for myself, I can say that I have consistently recommended Dell below HP for several reasons. Dell has a lot of proprietary hardware, so I can't put in my own power supply or do repairs myself. It has always seemed like HP was more lenient with this. Also, I have always liked AMD chips better than Intel, and so even though I build my own computers, I always recommend HP over Dell to anyone who asks. So, I can count 3 people within the last year or so who purchased an HP instead of a Dell specifically because I prefer AMD, and recommended it.
Most people buying a Dell don't care about AMD and Intel, but many of those same people know someone who does. Word of mouth has long been the most powerful form of advertising, and if Dell keeps shunning the AMD loyal half of the more technically advanced people, they are also losing the recommendation or consideration of those people, which ultimately costs them sales.
It is to be blamed on Dell, of course, for making the choice, but the question is not whether it is Intel's fault, but whether Dell's choice to carry Intel exclusively is hurting them. And I can say at least in the case of this consumer, the answer is yes.
You can get a better deal at BestBuy or other physical stores anyway. But who here gets great deals and service at BestBuy? And I've never seen a better deal. You can't even hope to build the lower end Dell's yourself at their sale price!
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We bought all our desktop (small form factor Optiplex) and all our optical mice were defective! and that thing smells like s*** in the long run (cpu)
God gave Linux, the devil gave BSD, and a hacker gave Bill the MS-DOS - anonymous
At least Dell let you immediately buy online from them, with options (even if not as many options as you might like).
I don't know about the US but in New Zealand neither IBM nor HP let you buy direct. How quaint and old fashioned. I seriously investigated IBM for a reliable laptop, but finding a clueful retailer was not worth the bother.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
Why does everyone take so long to come around? Intel clearly a kludge operation that sells marketing over quality, and their monpolistic dealing limiting manufactures to Intel only for bare-bottom prices is under investigation in Japan and Europe. Hello! Dell sucks anyway. Don't ever drop a Dell notebook, it will shatter into a thousand pieces and potentially destroy a city block.
Getting old fast, Shit!
I buy/sell only Dell because I find saving a few dollars ALSO saves me a big headache when dealing with big box stores! Doesn't work often, but I've found that's the case after over $40k spent on Dell hardware in the last 2 years. If you want to speak to an American, buy anything from the business line. Latitude, etc.