Dell's new kids on the block

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Can Dell break the OEM mold

that they themselves created and others followed? As I look at Dell I see a company that came in and dominated the PC market by being one of, it not the, lowest cost maunfacture/assemblers of PCs. It worked well, in fact so well that other manufactures altered their manufacturing/assembly to match Dell's low cost production. And there of course is the rub, what was once Dell's best competitive feature has for the most part been rendered all but meaningless. Dell now finds itself in a sea of low cost producers and their advantage has disappeared.

As I read this article and the "new" names it strikes me that there aren't really any "new" names at all. Each of the names mentioned come from the same school of "old think" that the departing names came from. Look, we rearranged the deck chairs and even added a couple chairs from another ship, that should keep our ship from sinking, right? Um, no, not really.

As the article points out, 85% of Dell's sales are corporate. In the corporate enviroment there are only two criteria that means anything once the base line hardware has been established. (Face it, the hardware is pretty much generic and and there are hundreds of OEMs that can give it to them.) Corporations are going to look at cost, where Dell is semi-competitive, and service. Dell has fought being a "service company" when others have seen the light and have moved away from hardware (Sun, IBM, etc) into selling services. Frankly, I think its too late for Dell to become a services company and I question if its a market that fits with Dell's culture.

Dell also made a foray into sticking a lable on hardware (printers, TVs, etc.) and called them their own. Sorry but that hasn't worked so well either. Most users (corporate and home) are smart enough to know that Dell is little more than a middle man adding cost to the product.

IMHO, Dell needs to seek and develop NEW markets or at least look at existing markets in new ways. I don't think any of the names mentioned in this article fit that need at all. In fact about the best I would expect from this group is more rearranging of the deck chairs and maybe a new wrapper/bow on the same old products.

So, how can they do this? While its a "feel good" move to bring in more of the "old think" crowd I don't believe that is where the answer lays for Dell. Instead Dell should be looking at non-corporate expansion. Sure they should keep selling to corporate where it makes sense, but they MUST look at changing that 85% to something more like 50%. The plain truth is the sales to corporate customers carry razor thin margins and can not substain Dell's needed growth.

Dell need to hire some truely new faces with new ideas. They need to look at why almost half of US homes don't even own a computer and then build something that attracts those people and converts them to customers. They also need to understand that they are NOT going to build a single product that sells millions of units a month and instead look at wide diversity in their products. The new customer base is diverse, so must be the products.

Here Mr. Dell, I'll describe a product I want and WILL buy when you build it. I want a flat panel TV that *IS* my media center, not something that was added as an after thought. It should have:

A full blown PC in it that can be swapped EASILY in the future.

A storage of at least 500 gigs with an EASY expansion to a terabyte.

A CD,DVD,HDDVD,BlueRay,whatever reader/burner that can EASILY be replaced/upgraded.

Networking and internet access. (Giabyte wired and the fastest wireless available.)

It should function as a server to my other media devices.

It should NOT play silly games on what I am allowed to record or distribute within my own household. (That includes my cars.)

It should have multiple video inputs. Not two or three, think more like a dozen and allow me to define what the input is so I can tie in my CCTV cameras. (Big advantage for home security, monitoring livestock if your a farmer, etc.)

It should be able to act as a application server so I can set up "dumb terminals/displays" in my home instead of more PCs.

It should have a built in UPS that can allow it time to shut down with grace.

Heck, toss in voice control that actually works and I think we have a winner.


Ok, so maybe that isn't the next big thing, but it does say that there are opportunies out there is Dell is smart enough to stop looking under the same old rock...

Posted by: No_Ax_to_Grind   Posted on: 02/19/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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