[He is] a sheep in sheep's clothing - Winston Churchill
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Dell struggles to flog boxes to consumers
TIN BOX FLOGGER Dell had to rely on enterprise sales to post profits as its consumer business posted a loss.
On the surface Dell managed to release a good set of second quarter financial results, bringing in $15.5 billion with $872 million operating income, however not everything was sweetness and light for the firm. Even though $2.9 billion of that came from its consumer business, the company said that after costs were taken into account it ended up with a $21 million loss.
The firm played down questions that it didn't take the consumer business seriously, saying that consumer sales still represent 19 per cent of its total business, meaning it was worth spending some effort on. The disappointing figures were attributed to high component costs, though Dell said it was taking steps to improve profitability in its consumer business. It also said that the usually lucrative 'back to school' period was a little weaker than it had expected.
Typically firms such as Dell and HP purchase vast amounts of components ahead of time, betting on the cost either rising or falling. Dell said that in the coming months prices of hard drives, memory and LCD panels are set to fall, though when asked if its hedged bets had paid off, Dell was careful to temper any enthusiasm, all but inferring that it had placed its strategic buys just before component prices had fallen.
Dell CEO Michael Dell said that 2011 will be a "big tablet year", though he did not mention if the outfit has plans to release any more devices. When queried about Intel's purchase of McAfee and whether it would change his firm's dealings with either vendor, Dell seemingly was as surprised and shocked as everyone else, saying that he needed time to "understand the deal a bit more" and that it was "too early to speculate" whether it would change any business relationships.
Though Dell did exceedingly well in the enterprise market, its lacklustre performance in the consumer market is clearly a problem. With increased competition, especially from Apple and Acer in this market, Dell has a lot of work to do if it wants to decrease its reliance on the enterprise to bolster its revenues. µ
Tags: Dell
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@Richard, try again. If you look at their web site they have "Fasttrack" orders and also machines that you can configure to your heart's desire. You were looking at the Fasttrack orders where they do limit configurations to make ordering faster and easier.
@BernardP, if you order a business system, you can state you want the OS Media. If you need to re-install Windows on a consumer system, it's built into the hard drive in a hidden partition, so who needs discs?
I'll stick with Dell, because with there machines there is no guessing on what you'll get when you open the case. Not the same with any other maker, as they switch out components daily it seems.
Dell lost my business and many others because they outsourced their Tech Support to countries whom could barely speak any English. Penny wise Dollar foolish in the long run.
So in that regard Dell did not take their regular customers seriously.
It used to be that choosing Dell was almost a no-brainer. You could configure-up from the mix-and-match menus whatever options you fancied and get the system you wanted at a price that made it not really worth looking much further. Now it seems the menus are dummed down and you basically have to have what Dell give you. Want an SSD drive for fast boot times? Sorry: no-can-do unless you order the top-top system. Want an onboard WLAN card? Nope, USB adapters only and its hidden away. To the amateur, it's not even clear that your system doesn't have WLAN on the board in the first place. It's now an awful site The choice is now so restricted that shopping elsewhere is a must for the serious system buyer.
Dell's ZinoHD is good enough for virtually any task short of mainstream gaming, and for $300 or so, why would you seek anything better for a regular desktop?
@ushere: I hope you're joking. Most people would not even recognize a Firewire port on a computer. Even Apple has been axing "Firewire(tm)" adapters from its models.
Dell has poor choices and poor value.
While most CPUs are current, it dupes consumers by having "starting" prices with cheap CPUs, then charging insane prices to "upgrade" to the i5/i7 CPUs.
Most of it's offerings have no dedicated GPU, or only offer a lame choice, with no way or option to get a decent card.
It tries to make it seem like you're getting a deal, with "discount" instant savings,...but the final price is way more than similar competitor units, some with better specs.
Dell used to be good, they used to be the best bang for the buck when it came to hardware. I would have gladly bought a system, stuck a decent GPU card in it, and been very happy.
Now everything from their desktop to notebook lineup screams greed, greed, greed. Poor value, crappy choices, insane prices for anything decent.
Let's watch that bottom line tumble some more and maybe they'll get serious about their business again.
not what suits your inventory.
no firewire on base models?
Many times, I have tried to configure a Dell home computer for a co-worker or friend. There is always something that doesn't fit: not enough options, too much standard memory (16 GB... Come on), too expensive videocard or HDD upgrades.
If the basic configuration is not right, there is little chance that the few configuration options will save the day.
And since last spring, there is no longer a true Windows install disc provided. You have to burn your own image disc. It's now impossible to do a clean Windows install to get rid of the bloatware.
Let's not forget that corporate users are able to install exactly the software configuration they want on a Dell box. They are not stuck with MacAffee and such.
$21 million is a tiny drop in the bucket for a company like Dell. Why is this even worth news time?