
Dell’s Life After Wall Street - constantinum
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/business/dells-life-after-wall-street.html?ref=technology
======
netcan
There are a lot of things that can be said that toe the line between empty
cliche and profound concepts.

Ultimately Dell & PC manufacturers have for the last 20-30 years been lucky
enough to exist within a growth market. There's a requirement to innovated &
such, but it's all bolstered by the fact that computing as a whole is growing.
That's the reason why Dell was able to grow so fast and big early on.

cpks makes some good points about product lines and I think this is one of
those places where cliche and substance can sail silently past each other.
Dell's product lines are meaningless words and digits. It seems like they
think of a new tablet as something that can compete in the 8" under $230
"segment." That's not just boring, it's either lazy or timid. They names are
noncommittal barcodes because no one believes in this past the idea that some
people might buy an 8" tablet for $230. If not, the might try a 7.5" @ $190.

Dell came to be because the process of buying parts and assembling them into a
computer you can take home and plug in was fat. Small computer shops were
doing it all the time. Dell did it at scale. For the time, it was a bold
enough idea.Today it isn't. Dell need to figure out what Dell is for. Right
now, I don't see a huge gain or loss in Dell going out of business beyond Dell
employees and investors.

~~~
digi_owl
And i suspect we will soon see, if we are not already seeing, this play out in
the mobile phone business as well.

------
cpks
Dell, and the computer industry as a whole (sans Apple) has been flailing for
years.

Lack of progress and innovation: Before Apple shipped the Retina iMac, the
best laptops had the same resolution displays as the best cell phones. Typical
laptops were both slower and lower resolution than phones.

Confusion: Buy a 4k display. Figure out what graphics card you need.
DisplayPort, MiniDP, DVI, VGA, HDMI, versions of all of those, "dual link,"
maximum graphics card resolution. It's a disaster. Things don't just work. I
called Dell asking what would be needed for a quad monitor 4k setup with Dell
monitors and computers. They didn't know, and they didn't know who might know.
Dell has Inspiron, XPS, Alienware, Latitude, and Precision as major product
lines, and most of those have 3-4 sublines. What's the difference? Even Dell
doesn't know (hey, Dell, did you know your reputation is set as much by your
business stuff as consumer stuff? People don't differentiate). Resolution?
Always labeled by weird labels like "SXGA" and "SXGA+." If you want the actual
resolution, best of luck. And don't get me started on processor speed. What
does i7-3500 even mean? If the config options have an 8 core with 4MB cache
and 2GHz, and a quad core with 8MB cache and 2.2GHz, and one is of a different
generation, I doubt even Intel knows how the speed compares. Going for the
cheapest always makes sense, given how long it would take to figure it out.

Lack of choice (or nice products in general): The lines are close enough to
each other that the computer you need is almost never there. The old Inspiron
8000/8100/8200, and corresponding Latitudes had interchangeable parts. You
could configure to order. Today, want that high res display and a trackpoint?
Can't get it. Or want that in matte (not glossy?). Tough. Want to drive
multiple high-res monitors from a laptop? Boohoo. Don't like wide screen?
Well, we don't like you. None of those options, individually, are big sellers,
but the lack of _any_ of them demolished the high-end computer market.

Consumer-unfriendliness: It's 2014. Why do I need to lug my power adapter with
me? Couldn't we get a standard that worked with Dell, HP, IBM, and everyone
else, and when I go to a conference, hotel, or family, I just plug into their
adapter? Of course not. It would hurt power adapter sales. How about standard
batteries where it makes sense? Even if I upgrade a Dell to a newer Dell, my
batteries all go obsolete.

It's no wonder PC sales are dying. This stuff isn't rocket science, but the
organizations making PCs are f-ed up enough internally they can't even get any
of the basics right.

~~~
omonra
I think your gripes have nothing to do with the state of the PC industry. It's
not like after calling Dell and not getting an answer to your question "How do
I set up quad 4k monitor off a laptop", you say "Oh, fuck it - I'm going to do
gardening instead". You are still going to buy a laptop because you need one.

Instead the major determinant is how good is your _last_ laptop - is it good
enough? In the early days computers used to get better very fast - so
upgrading was required. Today whatever was built 5 years ago can reasonably
run most programs of today, hence less need to buy new PCs.

~~~
yequalsx
Yes, I still need a laptop and I bought one. I bought a Macbook Pro and I'm
very unlikely to ever go back to the MS ecosystem. Perhaps this is why Macs
are increasing in sales and PCs aren't.

~~~
icelancer
I wanted NOTHING more than to buy a PC. I had a crappy Lenovo T500 that I
loved but after my son destroyed the keyboard, I decided I'd turn it into a
headless server for music and pick up a $1000-1500 laptop (used, of course - I
refuse to buy new laptops due to insane markup and immediate depreciation).

All I wanted was a $1500 laptop that could run Windows 7 and Ubuntu out of the
box, had awesome resolution, and decent specs. What I found was an ocean of
bullshit, and having used a MBP Retina at my previous job, I finally sighed
and bought a MBP Retina off of Craigslist for $1500. I'm typing on it right
now, and sure I have a desktop battlestation with overclocked i5-2500k
downstairs with two 30" monitors, but this is my road warrior and I use it for
writing, video editing, and light gaming. I'll never buy another PC, and just
a year ago I could never see myself buying an Apple laptop. Frustrating, but
the PC world has earned its place when it comes to laptops: Irrelevance.

~~~
Joeri
Did you look at the Lenovo yoga series? For 1500 you can buy it new with high-
end specs, and it has a retina screen. There are other options out there. I
must admit i don't know what the linux compat story is, but I am tired of
people saying there aren't any decent non-apple laptops when I see a ton of
them on the market from just about every manufacturer.

~~~
alrs
Yoga-series is Office Depot junk.

~~~
scholia
Lenovo still sells tons of ThinkPads. HP also has plenty of decent laptops in
its business ranges.

~~~
alrs
I have a ThinkPad. Mine is five years old, so it isn't Office Depot junk.

I keep reading that the new ones are borderline.

------
polskibus
I can only applaud Mr Dell for not going along with Wall Street and rejecting
short-term planning required to do so.

If you look into how Apple and Amazon is coping while being public, you'll see
that in both of those companies, the CEOs actually have very good deals with
shareholders that allow them to reject short-term stock market greed and lets
them focus on long-term goals.

The ultimate goal of a private company should not be going public - this is a
false dychotomy created in part by Wall Street. Growth, innovation and long-
term survival (meaning average positive cash flow over many years) should be
that ultimate goal.

~~~
awinder
Even companies like Apple have to deal with shareholder revolts / major
pressures from time to time though. Notably Icahn pressuring Apple to use it's
stockpile of cash on large stock buybacks when Apple wants to keep that money
for investment / possible acquisitions, or anything more related to direct
investment in the future.

------
Pxtl
It generally astonishes me how _bad_ the major PC manufacturers have gotten at
this. They've completely sabotaged their own brand names to the point that the
only "trusted" name anymore is Apple. I loathe Apple, but at the same time I'm
frustrated that if I want a consistently good experience they seem like the
only option.

------
virtualwhys
I choose Dell for their business offerings, specifically PowerEdge rack
servers and Precision series laptops, both of which provide beastly specs at
reasonable prices.

Wouldn't touch their consumer level "Home" product line, nor would many here
on HN I asssume, given that programmers and designers abound (who typically
need/want quality hardware).

If expanding outside of their niche helps Dell survive/thrive for years to
come, I'm all for it, just keep the business products alive and well, we needs
them ;-)

~~~
shiftpgdn
Dell is going to die as Super Micro continues to get better. Their server
offerings are very affordable compared to Dell and I know a lot of data
centers/cloud providers are moving away from Dell entirely. Look at the Super
Micro stock price over the last few years.

------
coldcode
I still find it ironic that Mr. Dell told Apple to sell itself and give the
money back to the shareholders back in 1997 and 15 years later Dell sells
itself and gives the money back to its shareholders. Will it make a
difference? I guess we will see.

~~~
theandrewbailey
Almost everything you said is incorrect. Mr. Dell said Apple should close, not
sell, and Dell didn't sell itself. It bought itself, and is still in business.

~~~
coldcode
For now. Time will tell. They will never pay off the debt.

------
chaostheory
One of Dell's major problems is Microsoft. In order to really bet on the
future, they need to just take the hit on MS's OEM Windows prices and to start
offering more selection again in terms of OS choices. That and offer more
configuration options again like in the past (graphics cards, OS, and so on)
and reduce the number of SKUs that they have (e.g. I don't really see much of
a difference between Alienware and XPS aside from looks). They need to start
catering to the 20% of the market again, instead of 80%-100% which reduces
their focus.

~~~
scholia
Dell has tried offering Linux on laptops: the sales are too low and the costs
too high for it to be a viable business. (You can get whatever you want on
servers.)

Dell might like to offer OS X on laptops but Apple won't allow it, even if
Dell buys its OS at retail.

> offer more configuration options again

Dell offered a load of options when it built desktops in its own factories.
Most laptops (including Macs) are built in huge factories in China owned by
Foxconn (Hon Hai), Quanta, Compal, Wistron, Pegatron etc, so configuration is
generally not an option. (Or not at a price people are willing to pay.)

~~~
chaostheory
> Dell has tried offering Linux on laptops: the sales are too low and the
> costs too high for it to be a viable business.

Well it's no surprise since the configuration options were extremely limited.
Also the available specs were really crappy. There wasn't an XPS or Alienware
option.

> so configuration is generally not an option. (Or not at a price people are
> willing to pay.)

Well then what differentiates Dell from anyone else?

------
StevePerkins
I had a lot of bad experiences with Dell laptops a decade ago, and swore off
ever owning one again. For what it's worth, they've definitely seemed to step
up their game in the quality department over the past couple of years. Not
quite to Apple (or even Lenovo ThinkPad) levels, but enough that I find them
clearly head-and-shoulders above Acer or ASUS now. Who knows what tomorrow
will bring, but I'm hopeful that going private will be a good thing in the
long run.

------
mathattack
I'm surprised by the sales increases, as it takes many years to reclaim the
trust of consumers burned by crappy products and services. I recall a personal
laptop breaking, not being covered by warantee, and then being shipped to the
wrong location halfway across the country.

------
dj-wonk
Any thoughts on
[http://software.dell.com/products](http://software.dell.com/products) ? To
what degree do the the products shown there factor into Dell's new direction?

------
theicon
Dell is trying to follow the Big Blue "IBM's" path.

