Barron's: Dell has peaked

[mac-er]

Well, I guess this will be Dell death knell #1

According to this Barron's article, Dell may have seen the peak of its business, having seen 7 straight quarters of slowing revenue growth.

 

[~Shard~]

Well, I guess this will be Dell death kneel #1

According to this Barron's article, Dell may have seen the peak of its business, having seen 7 straight quarters of slowing revenue growth.

Great news for Apple! The timing is indeed great for MacIntels and OS X on x86...

Oh, and it's "knell", not "kneel".

 

[Sun Baked]

Great news for Apple! The timing is indeed great for MacIntels and OS X on x86...

Oh, and it's "knell", not "kneel".

If Apple's next round of Mactels start having even greater growth than the current PPCs, it's only likely to slap around Dell.

Even though Apple isn't aiming to become a major Windows PC manufacturer, they could very well become the fastest growing Windows PC manufacturer on the planet quite soon.

And to make it worse for everyone else, Apple won't be spending any money on Windows support on their machines.

 

[mkrishnan]

If you follow the logic of this article, Dell's problem stems from the fact that it pushed the market for PCs to a place that Apple will really probably never want to go.

I am still amazed at Dell's success in producing flat panels at shockingly low prices...

But, I think it's up to Dell to innovate at this point. Which gives them two major options. Either innovate in the way they've always been innovative -- supply chain management -- and find new ways to make a quantum shift in PC prices or apply the model to other hardware (such as expanding the wallet share to which their ability to produce low price flat panel products applies) -- or the way in which they have never excelled -- by learning to make something really interesting that will capture people's attention.

 

[SummerBreeze]

I don't think that Dell will be able to make something that will surprise anyone. If you were a PC user looking to get something cool, would you go with Dell? I know I'd rather get something like Alienware or even HP. Dell just doesn't have the cool factor of many other PC companies, and it definitely doesn't have the cool factor of Apple.

 

[balamw]

I know I'd rather get something like Alienware or even HP. Dell just doesn't have the cool factor of many other PC companies, and it definitely doesn't have the cool factor of Apple.

You mean people don't really say "Duude! You're getting a Dell!"?

Dell is what it is: decent value, and fairly predictable. Nothing cool about that, but I much prefer than my company switched from locally built Heinz 57 PCs to buying exclusively Dells. Makes repairs so much nicer whan you have a bunch of similar machines, and you know they are built fairly consistently.

Alienware rocks, but their boxes don't seem to be worth the premium over Dells.

HP I could take or leave at this point in time. I have been a major HP fanboy for most of my life. Since I first got my HP-41CV in high school and learned BASIC programming on an HP-85, and through using tons of HP equipment as part of my research. But I can't stand what became of the company, and the products they make, under Carly Fiorina. Hope they have an Apple-like return to form, but I think the elements that made that company great are long gone.

B

 

[mkrishnan]

I don't think that Dell will be able to make something that will surprise anyone.

I don't think they're innovative per se, but the Axim line I think is a counter-example to this....

 

[cr2sh]

Maybe Dell has burned every person on the planet with their Rebates scams.. and now no one wants to buy from them.