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?"
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.