Dell's Marketshare Decline Due to Intel? 275
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?"
Waitaminnit (Score:3, Interesting)
Marketing Failure (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Perhaps (Score:2, Interesting)
Has their reputation has caught up with them? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
I don't think it is intel. (Score:3, Interesting)
The question I have, is how could Dell sales NOT slow down?
Customer Service (Score:2, Interesting)
That's not localized... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Perhaps (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
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:Waitaminnit (Score:3, Interesting)
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 why computer companies seem to go from first to worst so quickly. Well, except Packard-Bell. They've always sucked, and I think they are dead now.
HP over Dell for Athelon (Score:1, Interesting)
So for me, Dell lost my account for its allegiance to Intel. In otherwards, Dell chose to take away my choice of what CPU I would like in the PCs I buy, and I took my business elsewhere. I think Dell can learn a valuable lesson from all this... that trying to restrict customer choice by providing a single choice is not going to make them a winner. Now, only if they take this lesson to heart and also give the option to users to buy a naked PC or one that the user can request to have Linux pre-installed, so that we wont have to pay the Microsoft tax for an OS that gets dumped the first time the machine is booted up, Dell might win the hearts and minds of the developers that ultimately affect a lot of corporate purchases.
HP vs Dell (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:HP? (Score:2, Interesting)
Alienware (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Customer Service (Score:3, Interesting)
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 faster processor for 600.
I can only assume that the salesperson had an active grudge against my poor inlaws.
Re:Has their reputation has caught up with them? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
After finishing the base install, I realized he has just installed Windows HOME. I got to start over. I politely emailed Dell, two different areas, no response. Over a month ago now. It would have been cheaper if they DIDN'T have a warranty, and I just installed a $50 80gb drive and did it all myself to begin with.
Re:Perhaps - You are so Wrong, HP is also in India (Score:2, Interesting)