Where Does Dell Go After Losing 3Par?

crimeandpunishment writes "It was the big deal Dell wanted in a big way. But now that it has lost out to Hewlett-Packard in the bidding war it started for 3Par, where does Dell go in its effort to diversify its business and move into the higher-profit area of selling technology to other companies? The company faces significant challenges, largely due to its lower-end focus, and because many of its competitors beat Dell into branching out. One analyst says, 'People see [Dell] as box-pushers'."

Comments

Re:how about out of business?

[richdun]

Hmm, where have I heard that one before?

Maybe they'll get lucky and invent the next great... um... portable music player? No, that didn't work... PDA? No, that worked, but the market disappeared into smartphones... Smartphone? No, beat to the punch 4 or 5 times over... Printers? Tablets? TVs? No, no, and no.

Dell's problem isn't that competitors beat it into branching out. Dell's tried branching out tons of times. Dell's problem is its founding business model - mass-assemble PCs using standardization and volume to bring costs down - doesn't work on any of the new electronics markets. And even the things that went well were crippled by bad design, bad materials, or just blame bad timing. (For instance, their multi-function displays are nice... but who wants to carry around a multi-function display with their laptop?)

Dell needs to go back to what made them great

[erroneus]

Let's put it this way:

Apple charges a lot more money for its products and they still sell a lot of them. It's not the price that makes Apple successful.

Dell built its business on customer support and service. While it's quality has more often been pretty good, it has remained more or less on par with its competitors. What makes them better is their support and service accessibility.

Sad thing is they started sending all their call centers out of the U.S. and they wonder why they started losing business? "Everyone else is doing it" was the wrong answer in the case of Dell. I remember when the change was announced. Many business customers started leaving Dell immediately before Dell did an about face on it. Still... they did it anyway... just slowly and quietly.

So, "so-so" to good quality, and a pretty decent online database for machines and a not-difficult means of getting device drivers and such.

If Dell wants to rally, they need to bring their support BACK to the U.S. That will be the only way they will be able to differentiate themselves. And if they cost a bit more, I don't think people will mind so much.

Where? Fuck everything!

[oldhack]

We are going 5PAR.

State of Dell

[sycodon]

1.They have little long term vision, but are instead obsessed with making the goals for the next reporting period.

2. The "executives" are a series of "wonder boys" that come in, discard everything that wasn't their doing, and re-invent the wheel with their brand on it. They usually are there long enough to screw things up and then get picked up by another company.

3. Middle management has a siege mentality, never knowing when one of these "wonder boy" executives is going to come in and fire them, replacing them with their buddies.

4. The actual workers spend a lot of time wondering what the hell is going on and who is in charge this week.