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Dell's Marketshare Decline Due to Intel? 275

Posted by Zonk from the jump-ship dept.
timeOday writes "News.com reports that Dell's PC sales are growing more slowly than the overall PC market for the first time on record. Gartner's Charles Smulders blames Dell's decline on their allegiance to Intel, and cites Hewlett Packard's embrace of AMD as a key to their growing sales. Can Dell continue to shun AMD, or is a breakthrough imminent for the #2 chipmaker?"
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Dell's Marketshare Decline Due to Intel? More

Dell's Marketshare Decline Due to Intel?

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  • Waitaminnit (Score:3, Interesting)

    by popeguilty ( 961923 ) <popeguiltyNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday April 20, 2006 @12:49PM (#15165939)
    Is it really Dell's allegiance to Intel, or is it market saturation?

    • Re:Waitaminnit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by walt-sjc ( 145127 ) on Thursday April 20, 2006 @01:04PM (#15166093)
      OR, is it the fact that Dell has alienated their customer base with shoddy products and outsourced call centers (sales, service and support) staffed by people that don't have the tools or skill to do the job?

      • Re:Waitaminnit (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Foobar of Borg ( 690622 )
        OR, is it the fact that Dell has alienated their customer base with shoddy products and outsourced call centers (sales, service and support) staffed by people that don't have the tools or skill to do the job?

        That seems to happen in short order with computer companies. I bought a Compaq back when they were good and got great tech support when I had some trouble with one. Now (IMHO) they suck ass. The same with Dell. The one I bought was really good, but I doubt I will ever buy one again. I don't know

        • Same story here. Had an old compaq and it was great (as great as a 486 could be) but I wouldnt touch one now...bought a PIII dell and it was great (as a matter of fact, it is STILL a great system though graphics card would have died if I hadnt replaced the cooler and it has a lot more RAM and HDD space) but I wouldnt touch their desktops with a 10 ft pole right now. Their laptops maybe, simply because sometimes they are incredibly cheap even though they are shoddily made (and I love my 1905FP).

      • I wonder about that. (Score:3, Informative)

        by sheldon ( 2322 )
        I just bought an Inspiron E1505 laptop, and I don't agree about the shoddy product. It's better built than my last Toshiba, and the HP/Compaqs I've had at work.

        That being said, what did disturb me was the ordering process. Dell used to pride itself on having good knowledge of it's supply chain and streamlining their delivery.

        I ordered on March 23rd. The expected delivery date when I first ordered was April 10. By the time I got the email confirmation it had become April 18th. Dell has a website where y
        • I recently purchased a Lattitude D810. The build quality is much worse than the old Thinkpad it was replacing. Futhermore, trying to buy a spare battery was a futile excersize that only resulted in frustration and no battery. Next new employee is getting my dell and I'm getting a Thinkpad again. I'd rather take my chances with Lenovo any day.

          The Gold support wasn't bad for the part that broke the first week I had the laptop, since it's onsite next day, but the call center "customer service" and order proces
        • 2nded. I bouth a dell about a year ago now, and went through much of the same thing with the 'supply chain' vs 'web site order progress' disconnect. They need to work on that.
        • I just bought an Inspiron E1505 laptop, and I don't agree about the shoddy product. It's better built than my last Toshiba, and the HP/Compaqs I've had at work.

          If you grip the display with two hands and apply a little contortion, does the Dell still feel like it's held on by squeeky twist ties? That and the brittleness of the plastic used are the major factors keeping me away from Dell these days. It'll be nice when they fix these problems so there will be more substantial competition.
        • You said yuou had issues with the ordering process but you only described problems with manufacturing and delivery.

          Fact is, Dell's information on the manufacturing details of an order have always been BS. You don't really know what happened with your system, you only know the bogus information that was provided when you asked. Your machine was delivered 5 days earlier than initially promised, so what's the deal?

          I can assure you, no system sits in the boxing stage for 3 days. That should have been a tipoff

      • Re:Waitaminnit (Score:5, Funny)

        by hentaidan ( 933903 ) on Thursday April 20, 2006 @01:37PM (#15166447) Homepage

        Dell has alienated their customer base

        Well, now that they've bought Alienware, it's not surprising.

      • Re:Waitaminnit (Score:3, Informative)

        by Godeke ( 32895 ) *
        Sadly, I have to agree with the idea, although the word shoddy is perhaps a bit much. They still provide product and service that is better than average - but they used to be so much more concerned about quality and support.

        I think they realized how bad their competition was and figured they could cut corners and still be better than the average PC maker. I think they are still better than the average PC maker, but only barely these days; that isn't enough to keep customers.
      • Dell is no exception. Indeed, I think compared to many other vendors they are not that bad in terms of actual hardware. Their support on the other hand is absolutely horrible. I have had several customers who have had to order replacement parts and it is a pain. I can expect to spend on hour on the phone to order a replacement Windows CD or a heat sink retention assembly. That time gets billed to my customers. Parts replacement up until recently was handled in the US but that too has been offshored to India.

        Of course hardware replacement is the exception rather than the rule, so generally, I am still comfortable recommending Dell with the caveat that they are better to pay for my support services than try to call Dell.

      • Well, when people ask me (Score:4, Informative)

        by phorm ( 591458 ) on Thursday April 20, 2006 @02:30PM (#15167001) Journal
        As a fairly well-known technician hereabouts, I'm often asked for advice about purchasing systems, particularly laptops, etc.

        Back in the day, I might have recommended Dell. Their laptops were fairly well features, reliable, and competetively priced. Note that the AMD/Intel difference might place into the last factor nowadays...

        Anyhow, my more recent experience with Dell has been just as indicated: they've ridden their previously decent reputation for awhile but now their crappy call-centres, incompatible parts, and not-so-great quality is starting to bite them. Dell computers are getting more and more cheap nowadays, and that's in quality as well as price.

        Now let's look at some of the others:
        - IBM systems (up until Lenovo, who I don't have too much experience with recently) are generally reliable but less-featured (esp with the small HDD sizes)... still I'd say they are or were good for the office types who wanted a system that would keep on ticking.

        - I haven't had many problems with Toshiba laptops, other than the gazillion little tray icons that the have loading at startup to control the touchpad/wireless/burner/etc settings. I turn most of the unnecessary ones off though, and lots of laptops have 'em... so no biggy. The newer laptops seem a bit more thin/plasticy though so I'll be keeping an eye on them, but they've been good so far other than a few here at the office that have been shitkicked (big big scuffing marks).

        - HP: Well, I'm using one now. I've got one at home. The home model (ZD7000) has a built-in defect wherein it doesn't like having two sticks of RAM in with high-memory graphics/etc applications (spontaneous reboots). Not great, but that's the only model where I've seen that issue and haggling with HP eventually scored me a free 1GB stick of RAM for that laptop. It works fine for me, and despite being lugged around regularly it's been durable. My office-style work compaq (NX8220) aside from giving me nightmares configuring the ATI graphics card, has been both reliable and durable as well. AMD64 processors in the newer compaqs (and me being a linux user) scores personal points and recommendations for other linux users (such as at work), but not recommendations for the windows users. Compaq laptops also were known to be not great in quality before, but that seems to have quite improved with HP making them.

        - Acer: You get what you pay for. Acer's have quite a lot of features for your buck. I've also seen generations spanning three years that had consistant power unit/modulator issues, and quite a few with screen burnout. However, I might add that I do have a (non-laptop) Acer LCD at home, and it's holding up nicely, so maybe they're improving in that area... however the plasticy feel and the rumours I've heard about HDD burnout make me tend to say "whatever you get, try to avoid Acer" to most people who ask advice.

        - Sony: When you buy Sony, you're buying a brandname. And proprietary parts. And a sinking brandname. Overpriced and underperforming are usually two good words
        Now, back to desktops. I haven't seen too many Dells explode lately but when I do look in them I find relatively cheap parts (motherboard) and massive compatability issues with standard parts. Floppy drives won't fit properly behind the happy little Dell bezels, power supplies can be funk or custom, and sometimes even PCI/etc cards don't seem to go in right. Sure, you can buy a cheap Dell machine, but upgrading or adding/repairing any parts is oftimes a major pain.

        I wouldn't actively recommend against Dell, but I'd still advise caution to potential Dell buyers, and that's a step down from the days when I happily promoted how my little Dell laptops kept on kickin' (hell, some of the older P-II era ones are outlasting the more current gens)

        You can on
        • Gee thanks for knocking every major brand and telling us that all laptops suck.

          So, what the fuck are we supposed to get?
          • Every brand has its weaknesses. Depends on what you want, but IBM if you don't need blazing speed (or bigger drives), Toshiba tends to be good overall, and so far recent HP's have a decent track record.

      • Re:Waitaminnit (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Hoppelainen ( 969375 )
        Why is everyone trying to explain this with THE cause?
        The decline in marketshare is a result of several things:

        They don't sell AMD, they outsourced their call centers to india, the competitors is getting more competitive etc..

        It's not just one of the above

  • And Dell wonders (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Shadow Wrought ( 586631 ) * <shadow.wrought@g ... minus herbivore> on Thursday April 20, 2006 @12:51PM (#15165949) Homepage Journal
    Why gamers don't take them seriously. Hopefully they'll be content to let Alienware do their thing and won't try and foist Intel on them.

  • Perhaps (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Luscious868 ( 679143 ) on Thursday April 20, 2006 @12:52PM (#15165958)
    Could it be because Dell sucks and people are sick and tired of calling tech support only to speak with someone they can barely understand from India who claims his name is "Bill".

    • Re:Perhaps (Score:2, Interesting)

      by popeguilty ( 961923 )
      That's not fair at all. I had a power cord for my Dell laptop die, and the guy I talked to, Sameer, was nothing but helpful.

    • Re:Perhaps (Score:4, Informative)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Thursday April 20, 2006 @12:59PM (#15166040) Homepage Journal
      Actually Dell home support is in India. There small business support is often in the US. I have a friend that works for Dell in Idaho doing support for servers.

      • Re:Perhaps (Score:4, Interesting)

        by walt-sjc ( 145127 ) on Thursday April 20, 2006 @01:06PM (#15166120)
        PART of the small business support is in the US. The whole sales and customer service small business group is not. You only get the full US team in the large enterprise group.

        • Re:Perhaps (Score:5, Insightful)

          by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Thursday April 20, 2006 @01:09PM (#15166150) Homepage Journal
          Well there is an old saying. You get what you pay for. If you want good tech support that isn't offshore then you better be willing to pay more than $400 for a full PC.
          Good people cost money.
          Heck even bad people cost money.
          • I think the point is that you can't get good service and support unless you are a large enterprise customer - it has nothing to do with how much you are willing to pay.
            • "I think the point is that you can't get good service and support unless you are a large enterprise customer - it has nothing to do with how much you are willing to pay."
              Think about what you just said. The large enterprise customers are the ones that are willing to pay for the good support. Although I know my friend still does notebook support now and then for small business. I know because he talked to a customer of mine!
              That was kind of freaky.
              • I know exactly what I said. I think you missed the point. You have to be a volume customer. It's not that you have to be willing to PAY, you can be WILLING all you want. Unless you have the volume you are shit in the eye's of Dell. The Enterprise customers are actually not all that willing to pay extra - in fact they get volume discounts and pay less per machine than small business customers.

                You get a different level of service when you can say "give me good service or next year I'll be taking my 5000 unit

          • Re:Perhaps (Score:2, Insightful)

            by el cisne ( 135112 )
            "Well there is an old saying. You get what you pay for. If you want good tech support that isn't offshore then you better be willing to pay more than $400 for a full PC. Good people cost money. Heck even bad people cost money."

            True. I like to say : You might actually get "up to" what you pay for, and maybe less than what you paid for, but you damn sure ~won't~ get what you ~don't~ pay for. ("usually")
          • Good people cost money.
            Heck even bad people cost money.

            But Americans cost the most money.
            Dell should outsource to Canada, eh?
            Or maybe an Australian accent on the phone would be more fun.

    • That's not localized... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by BobPaul ( 710574 ) *
      That's not a Dell-specific problem. Name a major computer vendor that doesn't do that. HP, Gateway, Dell... it's all the same. Personally, I still like Dell's support and warrenty plans and have had great luck calling their support number, but for myself, I'd always build, so it's rather egal.
    • Thats what annoys me the most.

      I don't mind my call being outsourced (provided he is competant), but what I can't stand is being lied to. And when he claims his name is Bill, I know he's lying. Why can't they be honest and use their real first names? Its not as if I can't tell that he is from India.
      • How do you know his name wasn't "Bill"? Because he had an accent? India was the "property" of the British Empire for a very long time. Many of the Indians to whom I listen (I'm a medical transcriptionist) have distinctly English accents. And, yes, several with more pronounced Indian accents have names like "David" or "Thomas."

        As for getting ticked at a customer service operator giving you a false name (if he did), why would you care anyway? It may even be that they encourage employees to use America
    • I'd like to note that to some extent, you can really get what you pay for with dell. I could have bought a $600 laptop with default support, but I bought a $2400 laptop with all the bells and whistles, and 3 years of premier service. The premier service guys are fantastically. I was unlucky enough to get a defective video card, and it took several tries to get it fixed (the difficulty was in diagnosing the problem, and given the wierdness of the error I don't fault them for getting it wrong on the first

  • Marketing Failure (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Penguinoflight ( 517245 ) on Thursday April 20, 2006 @12:53PM (#15165972) Journal
    The problem here is Intel doesn't have a processor that the public views as solid and powerful. They have a processor that fits that description (dual core mobile), but they try to push P4s at people instead.

    Dell is only failing because they expect Intel to do all their work for them. If they want people to get back on board they'll have to convince them that their systems perform well.

    Their models are so unlinked to the processors that they carry that this will be a disaster for dell to handle simply because they have a stupid branding scheme. Moving to AMD wont help dell, but solidifying their position will.

    This whole summary is based on a false premise. I for one think it's absolutely absurd to suggest that following Hewlett Packard's business plan is a good idea. If you do that everyone will just think you're the other HP.
    • The problem here is Intel doesn't have a processor that the public views as solid and powerful.

      OK, go out on the street and ask 100 people what kind of processor they have in their computer, and their relative opinion regarding its solidity and power.

      Most people know that there is Intel. They don't known the difference between a Celeron, Pentium M, Pentium III, Pentium IV, etc.

      Granted, some of the 100 will sat that their processor is not solid and powerful, but odds are its the spyware and other crap runni
      • Exactly, I'm glad I read your post before replying to the gp. If we're tlaking about the general slashdot or tech industry public then, yes, the gp has a good point. But the home users that are a huge part of Dell's market doesn't know or care what processor they use.

        On that same token though, they do know that they just spent between $500 - $2000 USD on a PC and it's kind of slower then they expected. First Dell could get rid of all the free* crapware installed and second, to get back on topic, give some m
        • How much of Dell's business though is home versus enterprise. Obviously they have a HUGE home market, and everything you said is true there, but Dell also does a very large amount of business selling to companies. The IT managers at those companies making purchasing decisions, are very likely the types to be informed and hold opinions similar to the slashdot crowd.
          • Granted, but I suspect that the average tech-savvy purchaser is not as interested in marketing blurbs as they are about exactly what's in the PC they are buying. Yes they do know the difference between a PIV and a Celeron but they also know that getting "free" trials of MacAfee and twenty other bloatware products and 256 MB of RAM instead of 512 or more is not a good fit for the PIV they opted for over the Celeron.

            I'm just saying that marketing to home users based on processor specs or even brand is not rea
          • The IT managers at those companies making purchasing decisions, are very likely the types to be informed and hold opinions similar to the slashdot crowd.

            Not really. IT Managers has had extreme misgivings about AMD's platform support over the years, tend to be very conservative, and are strongly in the Intel camp. (Because deploying VIA drivers on 1000 PCs is no fun.) Maybe that's softening a little, but it still holds true. Meanwhile, Slashdotters for the most part are whole-hog AMD simply because of the pr

  • Has their reputation has caught up with them? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BadAnalogyGuy ( 945258 ) <BadAnalogyGuy@gmail.com> on Thursday April 20, 2006 @12:54PM (#15165986)
    Dell has long been the leader because they have been able to ship easily configurable PCs quickly and dependably to their customers. Now anyone can do that. They used to offer premium discounts on their PCs. Now anyone can do that.

    Dell has always used very marginal hardware in several levels of their lineup. Perhaps this is what has caught up with them. Another company who used to sell well until their reputation caught up with them was Packard Bell. If you keep shipping inferior product, at some point you will get called on it.

    Now, does it hurt that they need to keep prices high in order to offer genuine Intel Inside PCs? You bet. But that's just a straw on the camel's back. It was the heavy load that broke the camel in the first place.
    • Dell has long been the leader because they have been able to ship easily configurable PCs quickly and dependably to their customers. Now anyone can do that.

      Actually, having just NOT purchased from Dell, I think it goes further than anyone being able to provide easy configuration. It may not be conscious, but Dell is actively working against easy configuration.

      A few years ago, it was easy to get what you wanted - start by selecting the processor, and select upgrade options from there.

      No longer.

      Today

      • Amen. Try to order a slower processor with built in video and any decent RAID and you are boned with Dell. (ie: home server) You have to buy their higher systems with deluxe audio and video and god knows you can't get it without Windows.

        We have about 20 Dells here, been reliable, but one hard drive died (6 months old, 3 year warranty), so their tech came out to our office and replaced the drive, then STARTED the install of the OS and left a note saying that is all he is responsible for. Just disappeared
  • And I buy two HP computer this year both with AMD chips.
    I buy a HP laptop, even if it doesn't have all the goodies (dvi out) I want, but it have the faster/cheaper/64bit/cleaner processor !

  • dell's reputation (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SolusSD ( 680489 ) on Thursday April 20, 2006 @12:59PM (#15166037) Homepage
    I believe it has more to do with Dells ailing reputation than it does not sticking to intel. The fact is the *quality* that was once associated with Dell isn't really there, and hasn't been for a long time, and consumers are wising up to this. Plus, there is some good competition out there for dell in the low end computer market. emachines, for example.

  • Hmm (Score:2)

    by GmAz ( 916505 )
    Can Dell continue to shun AMD, or is a breakthrough imminent for the #2 chipmaker?

    Ummm...didn't AMD beat Intel in sales last year on their CPU? What makes them the #2 chipmaker? Last I heard, AMD was beating the pants off Intel and Intel was playing the chase game.

    Personaly, I would never buy a Dell. I would also never buy an Alienware machine. Those things are way too overpriced. I built my own machine that at the time was as powerful and then some as Alienware's top machine for half the price. Al

    • They were #1 in desktop retail sales. They were #2 in overall sales with ~ 30% of the total market.

    • Re:Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Knight Thrasher ( 766792 )
      Out of curiousity, what reputably retailer did you buy your laptop parts from?

      Also, I want to know why everyone thinks Dell is awesome. They're just notebooks from Sagers manufacturing lines (http://sagernotebooks.com/ [sagernotebooks.com] and relabeled.

      Just buy a Sager directly, skip the Dell process, and you can score an AMD Turion, X2, or heck, even a 7900Go SLI laptop, which is excessive and inane if you ask me, but, Sager seems to be where the real power lies these days.

      • Re:Hmm (Score:2)

        by GmAz ( 916505 )
        Who mentioned a laptop? I built a desktop system. I do own a laptop though from HP. The ZD8110 model. I like it, but wish it had one of the new laptop SATA hard drives.
        • I did. =) I build all my own desktops as well, but laptops you're screwed on. So who do you buy a laptop from if you need one, and also want to play some WoW and Oblivion when you're not working but on the road for work? Dell, who's all Intel? Sager, who's AMD?

          • Re:Hmm (Score:2)

            by GmAz ( 916505 )
            Auctually, you can go to mom and pop shops and get custom built laptops. My father in law did and its a rather nice laptop. But as for companies, theres Toshiba, IBM, Sony, HP, Compaq, Gateway, Acer, Panasonic, and so on and so on. You don't need to buy a Dell just because you need a laptop. And with the exceptoin of Sony and Toshiba, those other manufactures sell AMD chips in them. I used to work at CompUSA and all I sold were AMD machines. Do I hate Intel, no, but AMD machines offered the same perfo

  • Poor Desktop Prices? (Score:3)

    by stevesliva ( 648202 ) on Thursday April 20, 2006 @01:02PM (#15166066) Journal
    Dell has appeared to be far more expensive than eMachines/Gateway, Acer, and Compaq/HP for low-end desktops over the past year, even without shipping. These are no doubt low margin machines, but probably a high percentage of consumer retail sales. Dell's just not trying very hard at the low end.
    • Part of the reason for this is their stupid discount system. They hope to get everyone to pay their premium prices, but if you're one of the people knowledgeable enough about dell, you can buy everything from them at at least 30% off, often 40% on desktop pcs. That's just not a good way to do business with the people who don't know about the discounts.
  • They've been getting really really good pricing from Intel for staying loyal. That said the 2nd tier vendors have been making in roads against Dell with opteron servers. (Due as to power, and thermals as performance.) Once Intel's newer next-gen cpus (relatives of the Duo) come out things will change. The real question is will AMD's lawsuit against Intel prevent Intel from playing hard ball once the next gen cpus are out.

  • I don't think it is intel. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RexRhino ( 769423 ) on Thursday April 20, 2006 @01:04PM (#15166088)
    I think there are natural limits on growth. Every entity that grows has to fight entrophy. The larger something becomes, the more difficult it is to fight against entrophy. We see the same thing with biological evolution, with the growth and calapse of empires and religions. It just doesn't make sense (and I would argue it is not desirable), that Dell would contantly grow it's share of the market forever (and, of course, eventually it would have a monopoly if it did).

    The question I have, is how could Dell sales NOT slow down?
    • Dell machines aren't very upgradeable. Their business model supports the idea of a disposable product.

      Anecdotal evidence: a friend had a Dell P2. A vanilla version of that board supported a P3 processor, but Dell's BIOS gave him an error message saying it did not. We suspected that it was because Dell wanted to sell more P3 machines (higher margin) than proc upgrades.
    • Sure, but the point isn't just that Dell's growth rate has subsided. It's that their growth rate is lagging the overall growth rate of the PC market. In other words, they are *losing* market share, not just failing to gain more market share.

  • Customer Service (Score:2, Interesting)

    by kaufmanmoore ( 930593 )
    I'd chalk it up to worsening customer service and support first. I know people who had been Dell users since win 98, but after purchasing a Dell within the last couple of years wont do it again because of their customer support and they dont last like they used to. I dont think the average buyer would actively seek and AMD over Intel, they would just pick AMD if it was cheaper.
    • I used to reccomend Dell, despite my bad experiences with them. I reccomended Dell to my inlaws (who were compu-clueless) and this is what dell sold them (this was a few years ago):

      A 2.2Ghz intel processor with 128 megs of RAMBUS ram running Windows ME with no antivirus. I inherited it after they died (probably from frustration), and it would have cost me 700 dollars to upgrade the ram to the point where I could have a use for it (512 megs). I threw it away and built a better box with 2 gigs of ram and a fa
  • You cannot grow foreverfaster than your market.

  • Dell has sold well because they overprice their machines, then offer "huge discounts" to their consumers, particularly their laptops. Anyone who spends more than 5 minutes looking for information on a Dell can find these discounts.

    What the public isn't aware of, however, is that these "huge discounts" just bring the price down to what it should have been in the first place. But they don't know that. They just see that they are getting a $2000 machine for $1250. And those poor souls (pun intended) who ne
    • because they sell to a whole range of the market.. as to your claim that the discounts bring the price down to what it 'should be' let's look at todays cheapy..

      $359.00 pIV 2.53 512mb ram 160gb hd Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability 17 inch E773 (16 inch viewable) Conventional CRT

      match that- at any retailer for NEW equipment, with a 1 year warranty..

      I've seen similar or lesser with 15"lcd's...
    • No, Dells are just priced cheaper than others. I bought a couple of PowerEdge 750 with 4GB ram as Oracle R&D cluster boxes for $1,500 each. HP, IBM, and a hoard of other suppliers wanted well in excess of $3k each.

  • Sounds likely anyway. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by danpsmith ( 922127 ) on Thursday April 20, 2006 @01:17PM (#15166227)
    The thing people forget about bleeding-edge style computer saavy, technocrats is that they have market spill-over value. While it's true that not everyon will be like the most informed geeks in the world, and most will likely think Intels are great, that's what everyone has, let's face it: people who know nothing about computers ask for advice from others.

    I've been personally responsible for many system purchases that didn't involve the Intel tax. In all of these cases the computer I recommended worked just as well for the person as it would've with an Intel (if not better), and they saved money. So while there might be only a few geeks that know which processor is more worth your buck, they are the ones making the buying decisions for others in a lot of cases. Dell never accounts for this factor. And in short, it's performance/price ratio stupid... At least offer your customers a choice.
  • http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=OTI0L DgsLGhjb25zdW1lcg== [hardocp.com]

    ~~~~ On Dell's Web site, the XPS series is marketed directly to gamers and high-performance power users. The XPS series is under the gaming tag, and they claim right on the front page of the Dell.com site that, "We take your gaming experience as seriously as you do." The next line: "XPS show just how serious we are" is more telling. If the Dimension XPS400 is any indication, Dell considers computer gamers a joke. Harsh, yes. But we t
    • Dells out of the box come with 63 (!) Processes running - at least those i've worked on in the last 3-4 months. I regularly order and install new Dells and the first thing we do is uninstall Dell Support, Google Desktop, disable Musicmatch, the inane installshield updater, and McAfee. McAfee can't even be uninstalled without rebooting into safe mode or manually killing 6 or 7 processes. Getting rid of McAfee alone helps a ton.

      All of this brings the running processes down to a more reasonable level - about 4

  • Dell Dude's Denunciation Drives Dell's Decline (Score:3, Funny)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Thursday April 20, 2006 @01:25PM (#15166316)
    Dell's decline is due to its denunciation by the dumped Dell Dude.

  • Apple to be the New Dell? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Thursday April 20, 2006 @01:27PM (#15166336)
    It almost seems like an unnatural progression but it is possible.
    Back in the 8088s - 286 days IBM was King of the PCs By the 386-486 Gateway Became king then Pentium Dell took over. It wasn't because of price At the time each respective vender was priced a bit more the the rest. Then after they became king of the mountain the only way they could still compete (More) is by price shaving which lowered its quality so The next guy came in selling a higher quality product at a slightly higher price and the customers were happy with it and by word of mouth they became #1.
    I remember people going I am going to get a Gateway because I heard they are reliable for their 486. Then by 1999 I hear people go Next Time I am going to get a Dell because this Gateway is a piece of crap (after having to swap 3 drives and a motherboard) In a year. Now Dells quality is getting more and more shaky and their support is getting more cheap. So who will be the next Dell? Right now the best I am hearing that Apple Computers while may cost a bit more are of better quality and with the Intel Chips you can put windows on it as a fail safe emotional device. But It could also be HP/Compaq turn if they get on the Gun and made better PCs. I originally had AlienWare as the next Dell but Dell just bought them so who knows. But I don't think AMD has anything to do with it, it is about Quality not manufactures.

  • HP vs Dell (Score:3, Interesting)

    by msaulters ( 130992 ) on Thursday April 20, 2006 @01:28PM (#15166356) Homepage
    In my experience, HP might be a better choice for a home computer, but it would take a lot to make me choose an HP over Dell in the business world. Good design, good support, fast shipping times... My boss once wanted me to buy PCs for the office with AMD chips (because his son-in-law works in marketing for AMD). HP estimated six weeks to ship the machines while comparable Intel systems from Dell shipped in less than a week.

    Maybe with Fiorino gone, things are changing, but HP was once a company I trusted to produce quality hardware. Now, it doesn't matter whether it's printers, PCs, servers or anything else, HP is the LAST company I look to.

    One example: I bought an HP multimedia USB keyboard from someone on Ebay. Because it was a keyboard that shipped with a 'consumer' system, and HP only supported Win '98 and XP on their 'consumer' systems, there was no windows 2000 driver support for the features on this keyboard. Later, I upgraded to XP, but HP at that time had no drivers available for download for the keyboard.

    Another: windows-only printers and printers that when you try to locate drivers on HPs site, you are told that they are no longer available, for printers that are less than 5 years old.

    A few years ago, my opinion was the opposite... Dell servers simply couldn't start to compete with Compaq. They were beefed-up PCs. It's funny, because now the reverse is true. Their servers and office PCs are fantastic machines, but they're playing catch-up in the home, as customizations, see-thru cases, light-up fans, etc, have become more popular. The business world IS saturated, as well as tired of having to upgrade. Now that XP has been around for a while, and nothing new is on the horizon for the near-term, I think businesses are going to operate in maintenance mode until Vista and the next upgrade cycle begins. That's going to hurt Dell more, because they're the largest office PC supplier.
    • Huh. I've always found HP / Compaq home machines to so totally suck (as do all home models from all manufacturers.) Seems as most of your HP experience is NOT with servers / business models.

      As for business servers, no WAY would I use Dell. They just are not as managable, and the parts change all the time. When I deploy new servers, I have them shipped direct to the data center, where a tech racks them and powers it on. 15 minutes later I get an automated email telling me that the server is installed and rea

  • Dude... (Score:3, Funny)

    by zpeterz63 ( 851922 ) on Thursday April 20, 2006 @01:42PM (#15166506)
    Dude, no one's getting a Dell.
  • All they care about is if it runs the apps they want it to run. That's true for business and true for the home user as well. There are a few people out there who care what's inside, but I believe it's very very few.

    I believe the nature of the problem is in two areas:

    1. I don't see Dell commercials on TV lately. Is it just me?
    2. Dell outsources a great deal of their support out of the country. It's a HUGE annoyance to customers. They tried it with corporate support once. Corporations started switching
  • Dell's decline on their allegiance to Intel

    Easy to find out. Sell one competative, AMD-based, Dell supported, model and see how it turns out.

    A rational business would trial this.
    A rich business can afford to test this.
    Only a stupid business would avoid this.

    I mean, it's not like asking Ford to put Chevy engines into their Mustangs because that's not what consumers are demanding.

    Consumers are demanding AMD processors. I know this because that's what I'm demanding.

  • What can kill Dell is trying to become too much like Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is not the home of quality products.
  • Most businesses are in the business of making profit, not of making market share. The article implies that Dell is making a big mistake by sticking to Intel, but that need not be the case. If sticking to Intel means lower price per CPU it could mean higher profit, even if the volume and market share suffers. Tor
  • So, Dell's sales slow down "because of allegience to Intel", and yet Apple's appear to be increasing for exactly the same reason. Sounds like Gartner have been taking lessons from John C. Dvorak in how to make random statements that do not reflect reality.
  • If youre a company with 1% of the market, and the next year you grow to 5@ of the market, YOU GREW 100% PER YEAR! Whopee!

    On the other hand, if your company has 17% of the market, and everybody else has smaller pieces, then it's really really hard to grow.

    Basic arithmetic.

  • With Conroe launching this summer or fall, assuming it lives up to its early hype, Dell just needs to hold out for a little longer. I doubt we'll see AMD in Dell's, not including Alienware, anytime soon.

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