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Now That It's Private, Dell Targets High-End PCs, Tablets
jfruh writes: If Dell has a reputation in the PC market, it's as the company that got low-end PCs to customers cheaply. But after the great drama of founder Michael Dell taking the company private, the company is following a new path, adding higher-quality (and more expensive) products like the Venue 8 7000, the thinnest tablet on the market today, to its lineup. One analyst notes that "Because they are no longer reporting to Wall Street, they can be more competitive."
Statements like these are mindboggling.... "Because they are no longer reporting to Wall Street, they can be more competitive." Your share holders want you to maximize profits and growth, this rarely results in wanting you to be less competitive...
So they are trying to revitalize or compete with their "performance" line?
Wish him luck. For a notebook I'd still look at Falcon Northwest over Dell. Perhaps he can make people feel like their computers are inadequate and put some more vigor in the PC market which is sliding into the smaller and more disposable form factors. I doubt that, though.
You're still getting a dell. Even with them going private I think I'd still wait a while to purchase a dell....for my in-laws...for Christmas...with the fruitcake. Because you see, I can assemble my own PC.
One analyst notes that "Because they are no longer reporting to Wall Street, they can be more competitive."
The problem isn't Wall Street. Its the board members. And lots of companies thrive just fine as public companies because the board is taking the long view, selects a CEO with vision, and then lets him pursue it.
While you have a toxic board that is only looking to milk the company, selects weak CEOs, and structures management compensation to incent short-term thinking then you've got a problem.
I guess taking it private is one way to get rid of a toxic board, and good for Dell if they can reinvent themselves this way. But the problem isn't faceless "wall street".
Instead, name and shame the Dell board members. They were the ones enforcing the short term outlook.
My experience has been that something like one in three Dell PCs purchased by my school either would not power up, or let out the magic smoke, or both, within about 2 days of opening the box. They generally took the bad units back without problem, but then you had to do the 1 out of 3 crap shoot again, and again, and again, until all your units were actually operational units.
I can't help but think that the costs were so low simply due to the fact that they had no internal QC, they just kept shipping units out until the customer stopped sending back units. Somewhere in China I suspect there are whole villages whose economy revolves around replacing bad capacitors in Dell PCs.
Boards are typically appointed by the shareholders. A large proportion of shares (majority?) are held by "Wall Street" as part of mutual funds, etc.
The problem is faceless Wall Street, which will sue if they don't feel the CEO is doing their duty to artificially buoy the stock price in the short term. It most certainly is Wall Street that created this culture of "what have you done for me lately?" that guides the decisions of management. It is Wall Street's fault that executive management expects to be paid a hefty amount of stock instead of simple monetary compensation so that the higher ups making the decisions are all rewarded by taking the short position.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Spec: Venue 8 7000, 2,560x1,600-pixel resolution OLED display, 2GB ram, quad-core Intel Atom Z3500, 16GB flash. Android 4.4, 3D camera.
Windows is in decline, they're making an Android tablet. To win against Samsung, they need to stick at it, straight away the Atom chip flags that as a no-thanks, and the 16GB is too small (should be 64GB for a premium product), but the 3D camera is a big plus.
Its a good first step, but I'd like to see a 10 inch, 12inch with more flash and octa core arm.
"Battery life is unknown, but a Dell executive that has been using the tablet as a workstation shared that he usually gets about 8 to 10 hours with casual to heavy use." (from CNET)..... yep Intel has a reputation for power hungry chips and you're being sketchy about the battery life? Not good.
I don't care how expensive their new computers are, they're still loaded with Windows 8, 8.1, 9... versions of Windows that nobody wants but Satya Nadella.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Meh. Admittedly, I've pretty much ignored all such events since Alienware functionally went a way.
In 2009, Dell caught headlines with its premium Adamo slim laptop, which was considered a competitor to the MacBook Air at the time.
Yes. "at the time." And remember the Dell competitor to the iPod? There are several problems for Dell here. 1) They are a maker of commodity hardware trying to move upmarket. But the fewer units they sell, the worse their economies of scale, so how to really make something special, without having to charge too much? Apple doesn't have that problem, in part because they sell 6-8 figures of even their high-end products. 2) Sure, Slashdot readers may be an exception, but most people who want Android and Windows machines rarely want expensive ones. So most of their target market will either want a cheaper Android tablet, or, if they want to spend more, they'll get an iPad.
I think the best Dell can hope for is to be a niche player, a slightly bigger version of their subsidiary Alienware. 15 years ago, Dell and Microsoft both seemed unstoppable, but both have repeatedly stumbled since then. My, how the mighty have fallen.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Anybody that thinks Dell isn't concerned about profits is fooling themselves. Dell wants a good looking bottom line so that he can take the company public again. IPOs are where the money is.
Why do Companies act like the Wall Street Analyst run their companies ?
Wall Street guys are just betting on company sales and profits/dividends..
And the bond ratings are on a companies profits/assets/net worth (?)
Are US companies that far out on a limb, that the finance guys that do NOT work for the company, run the company ?
It always looked to me that companies that actually valued their employees, invested in R&D, did NOT over pay for mergers, overpay executives, and kept a long term view, did the best.
IE. Not, we missed the analyst goals, layoff employees so we have some writeoffs or can we sell a subsiderary quick.
Not having to appease a multitude of diverse investors does give management more freedom — provided, the company has enough capital without being publicly traded.
Sort of like a tyranny or monarchy — depending on the tyrant/monarch's personal qualities, it can be spectacularly more successful than anything having to answer to the crowd (such as republic or democracy). It can fail spectacularly too, though...
That said, I don't think, Mr. Dell is wrong on this one. There are plenty of people (myself included), who prefer Audi over Volkswagen. They may also prefer a higher-class computer...
But none of us here have any skin in his game, so we can just from aside, while he is busy working.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Don't care what you do. You'll always be dell.
And i don't want your shit.
Dude, you're getting a Dell.
Understood.
Yet, for example, Apple is competitive. But Dell is not? The same major 'shareholders' mutual funds, etfs etc hold both companies. I agree that the shareholders elect boards, but each board has a unique momentum and culture despite all being more or less elected by the same people.
But I can still visit their website and look at their products online. I'm confused.
Please let this mean the next developer edition XPS is going to be amazing. The current generation is pretty good already but where is my high dpi screen? I hope they are aiming at Apple's turf and I wish them luck.
> "Because they are no longer reporting to Wall Street, they can be more competitive."
Paraphrasing popular song: "If you love your company, do not let it go"
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
In April Google also did a stock split, and started offering Class-C shares that trade under "GOOGL", they have 0 voting rights. Granted you can still purchase class-A shares, as before...but even before this stock split there were still two classes of shares: :: available to the public, and
Class-B :: - primarily held by Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt.
Class-A
Class-B shares have 10 times the voting rights of Class-A, and gives the Class-B holders 61%+ of the voting rights.
Apple is somewhat special. See, for example:
Institutional ownership of Apple shares has declined as funds question the company’s ability to increase revenue long term, Morgan Stanley said in a report this week. Apple’s 30 largest shareholders own a record low 30 percent of shares outstanding, down from a peak of 40 percent in 2009, according to the report.
The problem is faceless Wall Street, which will sue if they don't feel the CEO is doing their duty to artificially buoy the stock price in the short term.
They will, huh? When has that happened, exactly?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Dell thinks they can be Apple, but don't have the walled garden that makes it work.
Although it's interesting about the voting rights, many, many companies have multiple classes of shares where the public shares are the ones with the least rights -- e.g., in case of dissolution, everyone else gets paid before owners of the stock get anything.
They were mad at Dell because Dell wasn't in Apple's market. Apple was exploding with growth, whereas Dell "only" had a stable market that they did well in. They didn't like all the server sales because that wasn't a growth market with huge margins.
With high end boutique computers would be a similar issue. While margins might be good, volume would be low and would never go up. It will always be a specialty market. Hence not something investors want money being "wasted" on. Doesn't matter there's money to be made, it isn't enough money fast enough with the promise of infinite growth.
Well, sounds like the private investors that own Dell now are a bit more sensible. They realize that there's something to be said for making money in smaller markets.
The tablet mentioned in the summary runs Android.
I'd be willing to pay for a high quality PC or tablet that wasn't made in China by the lowest bidder. I'm frankly sick and tired of poor quality Chinese crap! I once suggested to the CEO of my company (named after two people) to do the same (ignored of course).. To make it in the Yoo Ess but it'd damned better be good quality. I'd pay the premium. Sort of like the "Harley Davidson" of computers with out the T-shirts. I am so tired of supporting CEOs that bet bonuses based on short term quarterly report results at the expense of the long term health of the company. I'd also like too support a company that is truly innovative vs. one that can't even design a product and instead, outsources the crappy design and manufacture. Give me a premium product and I'll pay a premium price. I realize not everyone wants this but dammit! Give us a choice!
Those of us who remember the first time Dell hit the market - as a mail-order company with little to no retail presence (except perhaps Sam's Club?) - remember they were the first one to really make a big run at it with all off-the-shelf parts. The earliest Dell PCs even had standard ATX motherboards in them that could be easily upgraded if the owner so desired. This was a huge improvement over the rest of the PCs on the market at the time, which were mostly Packard-Bell systems that were a nightmare to repair and nearly impossible to upgrade beyond adding RAM. If they're going high-end now, it sounds like a return to how they got going.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You know, I would kinda like to see a reboot of the Adamo. AMD APU or a Centrino, hell, make it a chromebook. I rather liked it other than the anemic Atom chipset.
Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?
If a company fails the owners get paid last.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
You're going to hate soylentnews. Face it, there are some techies that hate opposition to gay marriage more than the javascript programming language. As long as hatred of the javascript programming language is higher, the website has a low enough amount of politics for me.
If a company fails the owners get paid last.
All stock holders are owners by definition, but the way it's generally supposed to go the more say you have in the running of the company the lower on the list for pay out in case of the company being liquidated. Generally employee wages are paid first*, then bond holders, then other debt holders**, followed finally by preferred stock holders then regular stock.
*Often there has to be a bond/insurance that ensures they're paid.
**Secured debt gets the security.
I don't read AC A human right
I think this means they would play it safe rather than take chances.
I want an X51 with Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit (they will not sell it with this OS). So I am holding out until Windows 9 Pro 64 Bit is available. I like Dell a lot and would buy an X51 today if they would offer the OS I want. Maybe now that they are private they will work with us?
a really amusing statement from the company that took the title of "cheapest junk computers ever made" away from emachines and gateway!
I should have been more clear on that last point: Owners of public stock are usually in a class that gets paid after the owners of the other classes of other stock, thus people buying stock on the stock market are the most likely to get screwed if the company fails.
If Dell has a reputation in the PC market, it's as the company that got low-end PCs to customers cheaply.
Sure, that may their current reputation but back in the early 90s, Dell earned a reputation as a builder of high quality and well-specced computers. I recall working in the electronics department in a large store and running tests against the Packard Bells, ASTs, and Dells and the Dells always won every single benchmark by a large margin.
In short, they were the kings of the 386/486 world. That is how they started. Perhaps they will return...
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
If you take your company to the vultures of Wall Street, you find that you have created an extra problem.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Yup, which makes boards self-sustaining empires. Small share-holder revolts are few and far between, and toxic boards rig the meetings to automatically reelect themselves. Throw in interlocking directorships that manipulate competition, and you get...wait for it...Wall Street.
And of course, none of them pay any dividends, so why any poor sap invests in them is beyond me.
[FUCK BETA]
Wrong. I wanted Windows 8 for my machine that was previously running Windows 7. I'm happy about the upgrade. I know others who are also pleased with Windows 8 or at the very least have no complaints. Get out more.
I have been a Dell user since 2001 and have always found their laptops well suited to my needs. Even when they broke down, service would be at my home in 24 hours to fix it.
This past May my university places an order for what I thought would be a very powerful 17" laptop ( I do a lot of statistical modeling). Not only did they send the wrong unit, but after 5 months the unit I finally got is defective. Their 24 hour warranty service took two weeks to replace a defective keyboard with another defective keyboard, and the computer is DOG slow even doing simple things like switching programs or system folders. It crashes and freezes ( running windows 7 pro) and I have given up and told our IT folks the $4000 computer we just bought from Dell is not something I can waste more time on. Dell just lost a 14 year loyal customer. Going private did not improve the company in my experience.
You're right, because no computer company has ever turned itself around from almost going bankrupt to being the most valuable company in the US while still remaining public....
Just because someone else managed a very difficult trick doesn't mean that it is repeatable, likely or a good idea. To use a basketball analogy that's like pointing out that someone else managed to sink a basket from the other side of the court and thinking "why doesn't anyone else do that?" You don't bet the company on trying to replicate the long shot improbable success of another company.
That's not what I remember. I remember everyone in the 90s buying Amazon stock, and their revenue going up and up and up.
Yes it did. However their profits did not. The only reason nobody cared at the time was that everyone else was doing the same thing. The dotcom bubble was a strange little era. Companies with nonsensical business models were going public with ludicrous valuations because everyone was afraid they would miss the Next Big Thing. If you started Amazon today I'm dubious investors would permit the company the same latitude they did back then.
Although the stock did have a little problem around 2000, I wonder what happened then.
The bottom crashed out of the stock market and they nearly got dragged under. If you were of a gambling mind you could have gotten Amazon stock for a very very low price at that time.
Hopefully this will result in more laptops with better displays... I'm boggled that manufacturers like Dell are still selling 15+" laptops with 1366x768 displays and have the gall to call them "beautiful" and "high-resolution" in their marketing. WTF.
When I was looking for a new laptop a year and a half ago, I had to look very hard to find 15" laptops with decent ('full HD', 1920x1080) resolutions.
Stop the madness!
- chrish
In short, the analyst should have said "Because they are no longer reporting to Wall Street, they can take more risk."
"Because they are no longer reporting to Wall Street, they can be more competitive."
Now that they don't have to impress shareholders, they can make money and be successful? What?
I still have my Dell Digital Jukebox from 2002. It was actually a nice piece of hardware for the time - excellent battery life, 15gb storage, well-built, and did a really good job at one thing - playing music.
When you don't have bean counters & stock holders looking over your shoulder, you usually can cater to whomever you desire. I've had Dell laptops for the past 6-7 years. My latest is a Inspiron 15 7000 series and I love it.
In other words, Apple has managed to get rid of investors who are in it for the money and instead get a bunch of investors who are investing because they believe in the company and its vision.
Remember, institutional investors are great for instant cash, but they demand things that can be quite harmful for the company like short term profits over long term growth.
Anyhow. Dell always had a higher end brand - they called it XPS and it was supposed to offer premium products (higher end products) and services - including technical support where they shunted you to special XPS reps who can get your issue resolved quicker. Of course, that was a few years ago and now it's just more of a marketing thing that offers nothing over the cheap PCs.
I read something about that recently, but I don't know its veracity --- that the way capital gains taxes were done (or changed) made it better for companies to play the overseas shell games and focus on stock growth than to pay dividends. Of course the stock growth aspect isn't always necessarily "real value" and when it auto-corrects/adjusts you can be left holding a bag oh shit.
Dell targets people with more money than sense.
Makes sense.
You are aware that Volkswagen and Audi are the same company? That A3 you covet is a Polo with different sheet metal.
That was precisely his point.
I want an A3 sized car. Do I buy a Skoda (cheap and functional), a Volkswagen (moderately expensive and nice inside), a Seat (moderately inexpensive and interesting) or an Audi (expensive and luxurious).
I want a laptop. Do I buy a Dell (business focussed, cheap, functional), an Alienware (gamer focussed, fucking expensive, garish) or a (rich people focussed, expensive, uses carbon fibre, titanium and solid mahogany keys)..
Same company, same product, very different options.
Yes, two-share types (or multiple share types) are much more common now.
Similiar to what was mentioned in regards to Alibaba, except I think it's only one share type - of which the "Alibaba shares" are actually in a holding company with no voting rights.
I wish more founders kept control of their companies -- they tend to give a shit about "the company" and "the employees" compared to need-to-be-more-rich Board's of Directors.
I am so tired of supporting CEOs that bet bonuses based on short term quarterly report results at the expense of the long term health of the company. I'd also like too support a company that is truly innovative vs. one that can't even design a product and instead, outsources the crappy design and manufacture. Give me a premium product and I'll pay a premium price. I realize not everyone wants this but dammit! Give us a choice!
As I have written earlier, short term profits and long term growth are not mutually exclusive events. Quarterly financial reports gives a snapshot into the operations of a company. Think of quarterly financial reports as a performance measurement. A bigger issue is tying CEO salaries to earnings but that is a different topic. If companies are not selling premium products at premium prices that means it's not profitable (or not profitable enough) to do so. I have news for you, companies love making money, and they would gladly sell you a premium product at premium prices if they will make a profit. For example, Samsung sells a 4K television for $100,000. That's is a premium product at a premium price. That is one example of a company selling a premium product that fulfills a need.
Apple really doesn't need them. That and where are you supposed to go when you are already the most valuable company on the planet? Time to go to evolutionary development, and have smaller internal divisions make the next big thing.
Big Investors are like the dog chasing the car. they don't know what to do when they chase the car. in the case of Apple, they are doing the right thing, find another car to chase.
After I stopped building computers for family members I started referring them all to dell.
The reason I did this is that dell seemed to have a minimum quality unlike other companies.
Until they started selling netbooks, the cheapest computers on dell were always midrange
computer at a decent price with decent reliability. Walmart on the other hand tended to sell
stuff that was 3 years old technology and practically obsolete before you unboxed it and
sometimes had horrible reliability issues and zero customer support.
Yes, basically if you reinvest all your profit in growing your business you minimise your tax bill which is in some sense beneficial for shareholders. The overseas thing just multiplies the effect slightly. However, at the end of the day the only reason to own part of a company is to receive profits from it and if you're not receiving profits and have no expectation of receiving profits any time soon, you're putting an awful lot of faith in capital growth. This is Warren Buffet's great trick: he buys companies that pay strong dividend streams and reinvests the lot. Berkshire has never paid a dividend (well, once, in 1967).
[FUCK BETA]