Slashdot Mirror
Dell Abandons Its Customization Roots
LiveFreeOrDieInTheGo writes "Dell intends to scale back its build-to-order service model, while increasing sales of prepackaged systems. The goal: $3B USD savings by 2011. The downside: customers expect Dell to build-to-order. The deeper downside: Dell will outsource more production and assembly."
Dell changes its name to "Dull"
Will this affect their offering of pre-loaded Ubuntu systems? There isn't a huge market for them, unfortunately. But I remember all the old Dell commercials - the main thing they had going for them was customization. I guess they're just becoming an entrenched monopoly like IBM or Microsoft, now.
Spelling matters.
Why is outsourcing a downside? Dell is creating wealth for all of the consumers who will be able to get more bang for their buck.
I'm a fan of Dell kit, but when HP hae beaten you in sales for 6 successive quarters - as stated in the article - limiting the amount of customizing may save you cash, but it isn't going to get more people buying your kit is it?
The 'fix' doesn't seem to be the solution to the highlighted problem... sure it'll save you money in the short term, but no gains in share there at all. Less customization is never going to make a punter go "oh, I'll buy that because it's not as customizable".
Add to that the outsourcing of manufacture and it all looks like a world of hurt waiting to happen.
*baffled*
When companies seek to recover these kinds of profits, they cut something more important.
Their reputation.
Most likely, they will move their call centers out of India and into a lower paying 3rd world country. The lower techs will be given even less latitude to help fix problems. Along with that, they will reduce access (and numbers) of higher up support, along with "new policies" of the 'not our fault' game.
They will obviously cut their unprofitable programs, such as their IdeaStorms website, all Linux support for low and middle tiers, along with the cheaper customizable options. They will leave customizing available for the higher packages, as all businesses cater to the big spenders.
Yes, our system is based upon a race to the bottom, but depending how you get there means if you survive or not. That really depends on how their deals with Microsoft go, as they are parasites upon MS.
I think I may be looking to move to HP or IBM. While the last time I ordered HP, it was a room full of boxes for five servers and some drive shelves, I do believe they went into the custom built model in the last few years.... Hmmm..
Ubuntu is just another disk image like windows xp, or vista.
Are you high?
Dell already outsources just about all their manufacturing. All that will happen here is that now they can streamline the supply pipeline because they only ship x different configs instead of 100x. Less work at the (already) outsourced supplier/contract manufacturer, less work on the order fulfillment side.
How it's going to save 3 billion, I don't know. I think they're aiming a little high. Expect support to be outsourced to even crappier Indian call centers....
Be thankful there isn't a deeper deeper downside!
I make all my own parts choices and assemble all the computers I need so this mean bupkus to me! After all they have done to MUTATE the city of Round Rock it is about time they scaled back...
I work for a small (about 100 person) company with a heterogeneous environment (Linux, OS X, Windows). In the past few years the IT team has settled on Dell for quick turnaround of ordering customized systems and consistency (the devil you know). They order Dell laptops, desktops and servers. It has pretty much turned into a "Dell house." The quick turnaround on customized orders is extremely important to meet developer needs. If Dell makes custom ordering take longer or involves increased hassle, I would bet that our IT management would start looking into other vendors.
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
I just bought a Dell, specifily because I could customize it. I needed a high end video card on a 15' platform and suspect most computer professionals have specific hardware requirements. Without the option to build the system ( which all ready has pretty limited customization options and 80% is up sell pitching anyway ) they would be removing something that gives them an advantage in a crowded commodity market. On the other hand, it creates opportunity for new manufacturers
e.g.
1. We will cease customizations through our "Dell Home" program but will continue with it in our "Dell Large Business" program.
2. We will cease customizations for our "Dimension" line but continue customizations for our "Optiplex" and "PowerEdge" lines.
2. We will continue supporting some customizations (e.g. RAM and HD) but cease support for other customizations (e.g. anti-virus software).
3. We will increase the price on customized models and decrease the price on prepackaged models in order to reshape demand.
Ahem.
"Why can't everyone just be straight with me?"
"Because we live in a bendy world, dear."
So, remind me again what I can now get from Dell that I couldn't get from any other manufacturer? Nothing? Oh well then I might just take my business elsewhere. Hrmph!
A friend of mine just bought a Dell XPS laptop because he loved how configurable it was. I bet there are plenty more people who agree. It would make sense for them to cut customization on the more basic models (Inspiron, Dimension) but keep it for the gaming models. As for outsourcing, I just hope their quality doesn't degrade. Right now I'm using a 9 year old Dell desktop that has been chugging along just fine the whole time.
and they're use's.
"The deeper downside: Dell will outsource more production and assembly."
Which will result in lower prices which is good for consumers. How is this the deeper downside? Why are Americans, which have one of the highest standards of living in the world, more deserving of these jobs than people in other countries?
Creative Demolition
Our system isn't a race to the bottom. It is a race to what people want. People want computers at the cheapest possible price and they do not care about tech centers or even support.
Outsourcing is a good thing for the economy, not a bad thing. If Ford did not outsource, for example, it would have to make everything from the drills for the oil, the refineries for the gasoline, the machines to make the steel and the chips and the plastic, really, recreate the entire economy and in doing so lose the efficiencies that come with shared costs. We can lament outsourcing of some function at a company, to make ourselves feel good, but, if there were no outsourcing, there would be no cars, no tvs, computers, or any of the millions of products, in all their choice and complexity, because those products would not exist without outsourcing.
We ourselves, each and everyone one of us, outsource all of the time. Go ahead can say Dell is terrible because they outsourced a call center to India or the Philippines, but we outsource every time we use a stapler or a printer, or for that matter, even a computer. How many developers recommend using MySql or Postgres or even Linux over some solution developed in-house. That is outsourcing too, and without that outsourcing, it is very likely that there would be less jobs and more economic stagnation. Few products have the margin or merit to justify the creation of a custom database server or operating system solely for them.
In that vein, outsourcing a call center might actually result in -better- customer service. If a place in India has 200,000 people answering the phones, they are going to get the economies of scale that even Dell could not possibly get.
Outsourcing actually -creates- opportunity. Any time you see more than one company engaged in a similar practice, that is an opportunity for a product or a service than can be outsourced to someone else, and that person might as well be you. If outsourcing did not exist, then, there would be no opportunity, the companies that could have benefited from outsourcing would stagnate, and products would remain more expensive, rather than less.
Bottom line is, outsourcing is a good deal, rather than a bad once, and the dramatic increase in the standard of living in much of the world - from the skyscrapers in China, the surge of wealth in India, to the internet of south korea and the massive works in Dubai, the world is getting richer and better off for it. Even in the USA, where outsourcing has been the subject of much debate, everyone has benefited from outsourcing.
This is my sig.
not everybody buying a PC is a first time buyer, take me & lots of others, i recently bought a new LCD monitor (wide screen) that can do 1680x1050 and i don't need another monitor, i already have a decent keyboard & mouse, if anything all i want is a new motherboard & CPU combo, but sometimes i dont want to build my own but a new tower with a great motherboard & CPU sounds great providing the motherboard has a Linux compatible chipset (especially ethernet and audio) and upgradeable - PCIe is a must nowadays, i search around at newegg & tigerdirect but i dont always want to build another = Hey Dell! show me something that makes buying a pre-assembled system from you just as good (maybe better) that what i can get from newegg or tigerdirect, if Dell can do that then they would have captured a chunk of the market share that made newegg & tigerdirect successful...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I keep old postcards from Dell on my desk. Here's one:
DELL MAIL-IN REBATE
Dear Consumer:
Thank you for participating in this promotion. Unfortunately, we could not honor your request because of the following reason:
YOur request was postmarked beyond the eligibility period of this promotion. [BULLSHIT!]
BTW the rebate was for 150 USD, which was MY MONEY that probably went into Michael Dell's Pebble Beach CC Membership Fund instead. Yes, this was from several years back. No matter.
Until a year ago, the workstations everyone of my agency's employees used
came from Dell.
Before Dell (in the early 1990's), we had problems with companies like Micron and Compaq.
Now, for a couple years, we have had problems with Dell; eg,
my computer is on its fourth motherboard in as many years,
and I know if I leave my computer on 24 hours a day
that its motherboard will burnout.
Dell has replaced every one of our agencies motherboards on our Dell computers,
but they keep burning out.
For our 1000 personnel, over the last year,
we no longer buy Dell, but buy HP workstations.
My experience is that customizing a Dell always costs an arm and three legs. Upgrading RAM costs twice what it would to buy retail, and please don't tell me that a 320 GB hard drive costs $100 more than a lowly $160 GB model. They make money hand over fist when small/medium business purchase customized machines (I've seen co-workers add on $1000 in not-so-necessary option), but the company has a much harder time with price-sensitive customers. I've purchased three Dells for home use over the past six years, and in each case I waited until they offered an extremely good deal and bought a minimally configured system and added my own memory, second hard drive and video card.
Dell has been losing ground against other manufacturers, and one often sees off-the-shelf machines at Best Buy that offer better value and immediate availability. Part of the reason is that more and more buyers are opting for notebook PCs that are made in China alongside machines from HP, Acer and countless other competitors. In essence, Dell adds an extra layer of complexity to their manufacturing process by allowing customization of these laptops to occur once they arrive in North America. In the meantime, Acer is able to ship preconfigured systems directly to retail outlets without additional expense. The days of the big beige box are coming to an end, and much of Dell's business advantage centered on getting people to buy overpriced (and often unnecessary) upgrades that simply aren't feasible in a notebook form factor.
Gotta love those GX260's eh? Glad those are only 3 of the 600 PCs I take care of! The new Vostros look like eMachines (inside and out), but the mobos are at dead stock ATX ones you can get at "Fred's computers and screen doors".
I've bought several Dell's in the past, and been happy with the driver support and things
My latest purchase is about a year-old Inspiron E1705 with a GeForce 7900GS, C2D, 2GB RAM.
Every Single pre-selected system I've ever seen of theirs doesn't work for me. I have strange needs - I don't need a 600GB hard-drive, that's what my GigE is for. I don't need a whopping-huge screen because I need a faster processor. I don't need 3GB ram installed because I need a faster processor.
Basically, I order a system built for what I need it for. I don't want to (and haven't had to) pay for things I don't use. If they change that, I guess I'll need to go HP... anybody else have suggestions?
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
One of my first computers was a Dell. A 4MHz PC-AT that had a turbo button that could send it to a blazing 8MHz! It was a fine machine, and I never had a single problem with it for several years. Of course Dell was one of the most expensive PC's you could buy, second only to an "original" IBM machine. However since the mid 90's I have heard nothing but complaints from Dell owners - apparently they sacrificed quality when they decided to drop the price. There's no reason at all for an electronic device to fail for YEARS after the initial burn in period, unless it's poorly designed or made with dodgy components (or your electric company sucks or you get a lightning strike). Yet most Dell owners I know, including the computer lab at my alma mater - regretted their choice.
Meh, I wish them luck redesigning their business, but the only people who buy "Dell" nowadays are the ones swayed by the media hype.
I still build my own PC's, ever since the day of the 386, and have never had ANY problems.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I just looked through about twenty pages of searches for products with the word kit at dell.com, and the only things I saw were things like parts kits for rack-mount equipment. There were no computer kits.
I think that AC just owned you!
-- Proud unregistered user since Oct 1998
The rumour was that ~8 years ago Intel was looking around for a new laptop manufacturer. I believe this is when Intel was making the desktop to laptop switch.
They desperately wanted Dell to supply all PCs for corporate use. However, Dell just couldn't make enough PCs.
IBM could. So Intel became an IBM shop when they transitioned over from desktops to laptops.
It doesn't hurt that IBM Thinkpads are very modular and easy to replace component by component.
Many former and current Motorolans will wonder if this has anything to do with Ron Garriques joining Dell. Maybe he'll run Dell into the ground just like he did at Motorola.
That's why I always bottom.
Rob Malda
Pants are optional, but recommended for you.
I have 3 Dells in my household, as well as a couple at work. I pretty much run on Dell everywhere. I am writing this on a Ubuntu Dell. I mean, their support is craptastic, like everyone elses. But I have been running Dell for 5 years and never had any failur#64vg
******** NO_CARRIER *******
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
Does anyone here get the same feeling that the submission is flamebait? Why is outsourcing production and assembly a necessarily bad thing, again?
Do not downmod posts "overrated" simply because you disagree with them.
Nearly all econ books deal with hypothetical economy's and all are either open or closed. FEW econ books consider what happens when govs. play with it. In particular, China has the yuan relatively fixed to the dollar. In addition, they make it easy to export to America, but not for us to export to them (in fact, they make it damn difficult).
Two of my four current computers are Dell (they'd all four be except for I have one current and one retired work computer that I was required to buy from IBM) and what I loved from Dell was the ability to customize. I never see a standard configuration with the video card and RAM that I need (yet I don't want to spend a premium on Alienware with that funky desktop grill which has the added ability to give my two kids nightmares).
I can understand the economizing aspects, but I really think that Dell's going down the wrong road, abandoning what made it stand out from competitors and, instead, trying to beat HP and others by adopting their selling strategies.
ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
This is why some people (not me though) think PC gaming is dead. Let's see some random PCs from Dell:
Dell Inspiron 530:
Video Cards:
Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100 (Can't run shit)
Dell XPS 210 (so-called "Performance PCs")
Video Cards:
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 3000 (Yet again, horrible shitty integrated cards that CANT RUN SHIT)
Dell XPS 630 (finally!)
Video Cards:
nVidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB (finally, something that can RUN GAMES!)
So 2/3 of the desktops Dell sells will NOT run any games, but the ones that cost over $1,100 dollars will? And you HAVE to buy that? Wow, I wouldn't be suprised if newegg saw profits rise over this!
So that's why PC gaming is "dying", most average PCs use those fucking cheap integrated "graphics" cards that can't run anything!
Remember a story a few years ago where Dell basically threatened some city/county in the states that they won't build a plant there unless the government help pay for it. And now they're dumping off those workers that they used as an excuse to get corporate welfare ("we create jobs").
The only thing companies like Dell knows is how to do is play with margins, skim quality, cut worker cost to create a business all for the bottom line for the short term. Their problem is that there are a 1000 other companies around the world now that can put commodity parts together better than they can and for less cost.
Dell and companies like it are nothing special. They create nothing of real value in the long run. They invent nothing. They innovate nothing. They can't even provide basic service when service industry and not manufacturing is about the biggest thing left. It's no wonder their boom and bust follow the same trend and short life span as the dot-com and housing meltdown.
Ah yes, the slashmyth that shareholders aren't US! People who bought stock, or have a mutual fund. People who have a pension or other retirement plan. How many here have even read the prospectus they send out to shareholders, or voted in a meeting? It's easy to have a scapegoat. If it can work for third world countries like North Korea and Iran, then it can work for slashdot? Yeah! It's all the rich folks fault that you're apathetic.
It is amazing to me how a lot of our current economic theory is built on "wishful thinking. It is pretty simple to see what will happen with globalization. There are Billions of cheap laborers in the world labor pool. Economic theory would simply indicate that will lower wages dramatically. You need $15 an hour to live, 5000 others in the world will do your job for $2 an hour. Eventually wages will go up. But we are much more likely to end up with lots of losers and $4 an average hour wages. If we place our country against 2cd world labor we simply end up with second world conditions in much of our country. Ultimately.
I've been waiting for this. Dell is making all the mistakes that Compaq and HP made in the mid 90's. They stared by doing away with quality customer service and support and now they are doing away with quality computers. Wonder who is going to replace them.... who is the next Gateway?
Alienware is owned by Dell, but that doesn't mean that they act like Dell.
My wife recently bought a nice (though low-end, by Alienware standards) desktop computer from them. Though the ordering screens are similar (as well they should be - Dell's web-based ordering is rather slick), and credit for both companies is through Dell Financial Services, the similarities ends there.
The Alienware case is a regular ATX case, with a regular ATX backplate and regular ATX mounting holes, and is large enough to accept bloody any motherboard, whereas Dell uses a strange-ish quasi-Micro ATX design without a removable backplate. The motherboard itself is an off-the-shelf model (Foxconn, in this case), not some weird Dell special. The front panel connectors (including those for the large number of fancy LEDs) are compatible with regular ATX boards, instead of Dell's non-standard monolithic connector. There's a plethora of drive bays, with all of the hardware needed to use them included, whereas Dell seems to take great joy in including only as much hardware as is needed to assemble that particular system (on the low end of things, at least - Dimension 2350 and 2400 machines have provision to hold a number of 3.5" hard drives, but there's only enough hardware included to mount exactly one. The other bays are physically absent.). The price was very reasonable - about $100 more than equivalent parts from Newegg.
We had weird issues with the Alienware's extra LEDs on day 1. Called tech support, and without waiting in queue got a real human (in America!), who spoke real American English, had a real name, and who actually had at least half a clue. They sent a new part, which didn't fix the problem. Called back, again immediately got a real human, who dispatched both more parts and a warm body to install them. Problem solved.
And, sure, it'd have been better if the system didn't need any service, but I did feel pretty good about the whole process. It seemed that Alienware wanted to solve my problem, instead of just force me to jump through hoops.
Meanwhile, I loathe to call Dell support. One of the hinges on my laptop broke (which was reasonable enough after 2 years of hard use), and I had to wait for 20 minutes before some girl in Bangalore came on the line who only wanted to talk to me about reinstalling Windows XP. I had to fight with her for about 15 more minutes in order to get transferred to someone with enough clue to understand the simple problem and dispatch parts. And this with their premium support package!
So, yeah: They're the same company in that they're owned by the same people. But that heterogeneous ownership doesn't mean that they're at all similar in operation or quality.
Kid-proof tablet..
Anyone have any insight regarding the impact on North Carolinians who are still forking over incentive $$ to this very wonderful company? Last April, we were assured our Winston Salem plant would not be impacted. Dell is allowed 40% job cuts to still qualify for our outrageous incentive programs. With no new hiring in the past 7 months and these drastic changes being made, job cuts at the North Carolina plant seem inevitable.
...man, not sure what flavor you like, but you have consumed 55 gallon drums of the globalist thieves kool aid. I will assume you are quite young as well, gen x or y.
OK, first off, lets get real *today*. They HAVE been doing things exactly their and your way with outsourcing everything and the economy is collapsing. Read some *&^ing damn headlines at least. Two, historical data points: Mortgages used to be ten years as common,now they are 30-50 or even interest only, and typically take 50% of peoples net income, when they used to be around 25% tops before major outsourcing started. Car loans were 12 months, not 60 or 72. A typical even lower paying blue collar single income was enough to support a family with multiple kids, college education for them, vacations and savings (we are at NEGATIVE savings now in the US, even the "great depression" era had higher savings), and now it takes TWO incomes to achieve parity with that. And yes, most of those jobs had full bennies, medical, retirement, all of it. How do I know this? Unlike the younger guys here, I was working then and enjoying a robust well diversified economy. I'll tell you right now you have been betrayed and I am incredulous that you embrace getting ripped off! Wake up! You've been brainwashed man, get a grip. During the outsourcing boom we went from largest creditor nation to now the largest debtor or dead beat nation. Our "debt" now extends to the unborn generation to come.
The US is freaking bankrupt! Read between the lines and just look at reality! Stop listening to those wall street shills and their sock puppet politicians! It's all over but the slide to second world status. They are running on fumes and inertia now, with over 30 billion a day going in to bailout the rich wall street assholes who caused all of this. They cook the books on all the stats, reconstructed M3 (google for it) has inflation running 2-3 times as high as they admit to. Unemployment-real unemployment-is in double digits and rising fast, they keep it artificially low by changing the rules on how they count it. How the FUCK can they claim tens of thousands of new construction jobs were "created" this past month when the lenders are slammed shut tighter than a cat's asshole right now and thousands and thousands of homes and strip malls and office space are sitting empty, with the owners dropping prices every other day? The banks are so backed up with foreclosures they are letting people slide just so they don't have entire blocks sitting with empty houses for the copper thieves to hit. Freaking Lowes and Home Depot are hurting, so where's all this construction going on? I could go right down the damn list but I won't right now..it's bad like that most all over now.
In short, everyone who hasn't been brainwashed knows the CO$ is a freaking stupid cult, well, so is the globalism cult. All it has done is make the top 1% wealthier and left everyone else holding their debt.
And you think this has been a good idea...sheesh... And they WILL abandon "you" when you are no longer useful to them, and all those foreigners are going to STOP selling you cheap trinkets when you no longer have anything of value to trade for them, and believe me, it won't be long before that FRN stash you have is about worthless. They'll be trading with the places that provide them with raw materials they need. They will abandon the US market once they no longer need it, replacing it with internal markets and tangibles trading partners, not printed up pieces of paper traders. They only did that for some years while they were buying up machine tools, go back and research what china, inc has been buying for the last 25 years, machine tools, factories and raw materials and energy, and IP they just outright steal constantly. And they built up their infrastructure with it. Now for the second phase, and we have just started it.
Basic historical economy, been proven over and over and over again: you can NOT printing press your way to wealth. It works for a short time..but not
That has to be the worst haiku I have ever read.
All great companies ever created were created by engineers and run by engineers.
Many great companies have been driven to destruction by control freak managers with zero ability to know technology.
Not to say that there arent control freak engineers out there making mistakes, but they at least create something aswell, not just create lies.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
those assembly plants you are talking about. Was in the news two days ago. They are cutting thousands of jobs-not moving them, cutting them.
Is dell really that much faster than walking in a large shop supplier, making your order, paying and getting a box in 15mins?
Maybe its because its lazy and easy to get hardware from one supplier, but then again the contracts state that ram+hd upgrades also be done by DELL, at 3x the retail price
of those parts ofcourse.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I have seen this out sourcing cutting back to basics method of compensating for lack lustre management from so many US based companies now that Im surprised companies still do it. GM and Ford both did exactly the same as Dell while Toyota who now totally thrashing them built more factories and became bigger and better. Dell should stop thinking of cutting back and saving costs but look at ways of becoming more inventive and increase your size thus restricting your competitors ability to strike at you. When you down size your company you do to some degree become more competitive but you also lose the ability to increase your market share and if your competition is clever they should attack this weakness.
Profit, remaining the difference between income and costs however, isn't as simple as "reduce costs, increase profit"... you stop selling things, you stop getting the income too.
Speaking as a manager who purchases regularly... Dell's god awful love of non standard components to try and drive customers back to them for upgrades is next to inexcusable. I tolerate it because office machines can be bought to the spec I need without cracking the case. To now be told, "Oh? You need a high end processor and ram but don't care about the rest of the system? Sorry, that only comes in our high end system and you now have to pay for media burners, graphics cards, hard drives and Vista Ultimate that you don't want."... Especially when I can't buy a lower end system and swap out the processor because the old motherboard won't support it and can't swap out the motherboard because the case uses non standard connectors and fan mounts... I'm going to be going straight to the competition.
So, yes, Dell will cut $3B in costs. Part of that will be the costs of all the systems they used to sell to me. Along with the profits on those systems too. Assuming the same holds true for others, they successfully cut off their $4-5B nose to spite their $3B face.
For example, I finally went with Dell because it was the only one that offered, in Italy, the option to buy a laptop with an American keyboard instead of an Italian keyboard, with an English version of the O/S instead of the localized one, and with a European electrical plug instead of the Italian one.
My laptop has served me rather well in these 6 years, despite my very rought handling, and requiring a bare minimum of upgrades and replacements (new cooling fans, more RAM, a new hard disk).
Now I'm starting to look around for a new system, and I found out that Dell doesn't offer any of the customization options I chose Dell for in the first place. When I bought my mom's laptop, it was extremely difficult to find a system that offered XP instead o Vista, now they are completely gone. I can't choose the O/S language, I can't choose the keyboard layout, and I can't choose the plugs. I'm going to look elsewhere, most definitely. A Lenovo, probably.
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
http://slashdot.org/~smitty_one_each/journal/196922
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
The Iron Lady did not salvage Britain. She offered a safe haven in Europe for pirates and crooks to store their loot. Yep, some of the locals have benefited from that. Those who mix with crooks and are willing to turn a blind eye often do.
If regulation is the problem, then why not deregulate entirely, and go back to the slave trade? Low labour costs, cheaper production etc....
If a well regulated state has open trade with an unregulated state, then it will be the regulated state which will loose out. That's what we have seen these last 40 years as cheap imports from China have undermined our local well regulated industries and our democratic tradition along with them, and boosted those of China where individual liberty is no great consideration.
Don't imagine that you are only importing goods from China when you trade with them. Their government has a vastly greater say in world affairs as a result of this trade, and the say of the US has decreased proportionately.
It was a pleasure to read your post, sir or madam*. Thank you for making this blog worth visiting today!
/.
*Just kidding, I know there are no women on
Dell shares fell 38 cents to $19.95. ... as I said, In the end. This change doesn't sit well with investors it seems. And in the end, nor will Dell's customers. I just hope it doesn't kill Dell.com/open sells.
\
More and more virus are showing up in computers and parts coming from China. This includes hard disks, bios, and even in chips (including several ASICs, which indicates a more systemic approach is happening; i.e. it is not just a single hired contractor that was able to slip it in). Somebody who creates a manufacturing line that does not utilize these infected parts would go far with western govs. And if done in an automated fashion, it could be much lower cost than what is coming from China.
I suspect that said company could even take over companies like HP and Dell by focusing on Customer Service, in addition, to having lower costs and a SECURED system.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
As long as its black.
Well, lack of choice does decrease manufacturing costs.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Was selling poor quality white box clones that they stuck their name on.
Really bad stuff. But it worked out for them as all the other companies buying the same garbage to 'rebrand' back then are long gone..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It is amazing to me how a lot of our current economic theory is built on "wishful thinking
No, its based on really proven fact. Outsourcing is really nothing more than specialization of labor. Originally, the manufacturing unit was the family. Then, some of those functions were outsourced to other families and thus villages and then cities were born. Eventually cities outsourced to other cities and thus states and then nations were born.
Along the way, somebody got screwed because of outsourcing, someone always does. But, last time I checked, we all have computers, in fact, we're building computers for third world countries. We all have cars, bikes, broadband, and the radio that seemed almost magical a scant generation or two ago is now pervasive as another feature of everything we own. Thus, in terms of sheer wealth, in terms of sheer things owned, we have way more than we had even ten years ago.
You can't go back on outsourcing without the wealth it brings, so, the question really has to be asked? What level of outsourcing do you want to dial back to? Do you want to go back to the 1960s, the 1970s? The Amish people in Lancaster PA do their best to maintain manufacturing at the village unit, and they have horse and buggies and still must buy reflectors from outside the village. Do you want horse and buggies?
Really, the thing is, when people condemn outsourcing, they never really are specific as to what they think should or should not be outsourced. I buy American cars and American products, but, what's an American car these days? I would be willing to bet that the memory for the onboard computers are made in taiwan, probably using machines designed and built by Siemens in Germany, possibly using an embedded system designed by the British and integrated in design by American engineers, and yeah, probably containing a fair number of parts manufactured in China.
There's nothing national anymore, and even if there could be that way again, how fair would that be for countries that do not have various resources in either raw materials or population on their country. Last time we tried national manufacturing, the economic system completely and repeatedly collapsed, and instead of peaceful oceans we had oceans stuffed with massive battlefleets as various countries tried to grab the best access to raw materials and talent as it could.
Viewed from a distance, the world wars and then the cold war can really be viewed as the consequence of a national manufacturing. We Americans had the insight to use our successful in those wars to more or less impose a free trade regime on the world, with the idea that if trade were unhindered, there would be no more major wars.
-THIS POLICY HAS WORKED-.
Sure, there are plenty of little wars, and even though what's happening in Iraq is costly and unfortunate, overall, there have not been cities being firebombed and 100,000 people being killed in a single night. You don't see armies of 20,000,000 or men mobilized to duke it out. I mean, even now, the US Army of 2008 is -SMALLER- in manpower than the British Army of 1916.
So yeah, it sucks that we might lose our jobs to some muk muk that can do it cheaper, but it beats the shit out of doing what previous generations did - world wide panics, a world war, millions killed, global economic meltdown, then, ANOTHER world war.
It is so historically evident that war is an inevitable consequence of the restraint of trade, that, I should think it madness to seriously contemplate a significant restraint of trade at all.
This is my sig.
Maybe Dell changing their policies to a lesser number of configuration options will end up hurting them even more. I really couldn't care who makes a computer, as long as it's quality and I can configure it the way I want to. My last two notebook computers have been Dell's - only becuase Dell enables me to get almost exactly what I was looking for (and with a serial port too!). If they gave me less options, I might buy a ThinkPad or an HP - or the way things are going, maybe even a MacBook pro. That new 1920 x 1600 LCD Backlit screen looks nice.
Dell makes this all quite clear when buying their stuff. Indeed, I think for servers, they select the mid-level contract by default, so you actually had to go out of your way to downgrade the level of service you were choosing.
You got what you asked for, and now you complain.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
You do not have to be in charge of the design center. All you really need is the manufacturing line and control of the equipment that is used to build it with.
As to open chips, well, hummmm... First things first. Set up a profitable line that will sell to feds, as well as companies. It should have a motherboard, built with chips from a secured company/location. Once that is done, then you can point out what is used and what is not. From there, you can move into open chips as well.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I bet my bottom dollar, (well bottom uro), that you office had a bunch of Optiplex GX270/GX280's. These are prone to the dreaded bulging capacitor problem http://www.news.com/PCs-plagued-by-bad-capacitors/2100-1041_3-5942647.html. We had a bunch of them pop over the last year or so. It's unfortunate, but Dell have been pretty good to us since.
If workers are given the funding, time and education to retrain and relocate, that isn't a problem. But the closure off the dominant employers in some areas, meant there is no-one to sell services to.
I agree with that.
The other problem, too, is that the USA seems to be the only nation that really doesn't have nationalistic consumer shoppers. Japan comes to mind as the biggest offender. Everyone has a hard time making it in Japan largely because Japanese consumers are outrageously nationalistic when it comes to shopping. There's not some law that the government could pass that would open things up... it's that the people there will only buy Japanese stuff.
Europeans, too are the same way. For decades, Europeans often have been saying that American stuff is crap, and yet, if you look at any honest study of defects per item made, European stuff is surprisingly laggard when it comes to quality. Jaguar is legend for it, but, BMW owners too often have a ritual of taking the car to the shop for teething problems. I know two guys with M3s, and they both went to the shop for this, that and the other.
SO, with that in mind, despite my idealistic and strident defense of the theory of free trade, and, being enormously mindful of the heavy price paid by American manufacturers for it, I do often ask - is the USA the only country that actually tries to trade fairly, and if so, then, really what's the point of free trade? Maybe it would be better to carve the world up into manufacturing zones - like Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
This is my sig.
that I bought a Dell a couple years back when I just didn't want to put in the effort of selecting, shipping, and assembling a bunch of parts. The thing "just works". Of course, I was persuaded by a $315 savings e-coupon. :-)
"Our system isn't a race to the bottom. It is a race to what people want. People want computers at the cheapest possible price and they do not care about tech centers or even support."
We want free software and free entertainment.
Don't forget that all of these CEOs also serve on each other's Board of Directors.
They're not really "screwing up and leaving", they're just getting out of the way so that one of their friends and compatriots can take his or her turn at plundering the corporation.
It pays to go to the right universities and join the right clubs and organizations...
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
I have dealt with way to many of them and frankly I think they are more of problem than a solution.
But your just a bit nuts.
China is eating our lunch because.
1. They pay slave wages.
2. People are willing to are willing to pay very little money for crap. And people are less willing to pay for quality.
3. China will dump lead, mercury, and any other nasty material you can imagine into the environment with out any really consideration of the out come.
I am pro Nuclear power but I am glad that we do debate it's merits. I just wish that the fear mongers would stay out of it.
I am not fun of environmental extremists but the air and water are a lot cleaner now then they where back in 60s.
Unions are a pain but they are not the villain you make the them out to be. Yes some government regulations are a pain but they also have their good side.
You are the type that gives us a bad name globally. /. that the term 'kit' used in this context translates to 'equipment', or 'gear', or even 'toolkit'(eh:toolkit could be a dead giveaway here!). *says under breath* Stupid git! (my apologies to Monty Python)
Your mistake is in assuming that the American version of the English language is the only one in use, or existence.
I thought that it was common knowledge here on
Remember where our English language came from. Not only that, but it is currently spoken over most of the globe, and I can assure you that outside of the USA, the version is most likely based on the current UK version.
Open your eyes and mind, quit limiting yourself and those you may influence. Get informed.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti