HP Regains Throne as Top PC Maker 134
Nick writes "HP is once again the leading PC manufacturer." From the article: "HP has snatched the PC crown from Dell's barely coherent clutches. It has taken HP close to three years to once again lead the market in worldwide PC sales. Under CEO Carly Fiorina and post Compaq, the company largely gave up on the tit-for-tat struggle with Dell for the PC top spot that had been so important to it over the years. Now it has reclaimed the #1 slot during the third quarter on the back of Dell's self-destruction. Overall, worldwide PC shipments hit 59.1m units in the third quarter - a 7 per cent rise from the same period last year, according to new data from Gartner. The US PC market, however, dipped 2 per cent, marking its first fall since mid-2002. Dell is particularly exposed to the US PC market, and it showed." Update: 10/20 16:37 GMT by Z : Switched link to a more current story.
4 year old article (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this like the Compaq thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
HP doesn't make significant profit selling PCs.
It hardly sets any technology standards - those are all set by the rest of the industry.
If Dell is #1 next month, so what?
The vendor making all the money in the PC business is still...
that same company from Washington state.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Article is from 2003 (Score:3, Insightful)
Not exactly. It's just that this battle between HP and Dell keeps going around in circles. 6 months from now Dell will be back on top, a year from now HP, etc. etc. etc., ad nauseam.
Re:Putting it into context (Score:2, Insightful)
Kind of, it's just Dell's turn to think they are IBM, and folk buy their machines because of the brand name, or their legendary support. "If we increase our margins, and outsource all our support to India, customers will keep buying our stuff, right?" Wrong.
Err.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:should I switch? (Score:3, Insightful)
Upgrade only if you have a compelling reason. If it works fine on your dial up connection for reading Slashdot, then there is no reason to upgrade. However if you want to play trackmania while talking on Skype on a broadband connection, then you might want to look into an upgrade.
Remember when HP made _technical_ news... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, HP is now the top PC vendor.
And this means what? Vista will run in some new, exciting way different from the way it runs on Dells? Interesting new _kinds_ of peripherals will come to market first on HP boxes, the way the Sony 3.5" diskette did?
Or does it just mean (yawn) that on the right day with the wind behind it, some HP models may offer incrementally more RAM or an incrementally faster processor than the equivalent Dell, especially for corporate purchasing agents purchasing them in quantities of a thousand?
How long has it been since HP tried anything like NewWave?
Re:HP Quality (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd say HP machines have given me less problems, but not a lot less. Support is abysmal for both companies, but I've become adept at webchatting my way to success without becoming angry or insulting. Either of those will ruin my day and decrease my chance of support giving me what I need.
I like HP as a company, just because it was started by engineers and I loved my hp11c in high school. I'm not very loyal, though. I'll buy whatever the company I'm doing work for buys without complaint. For personal use or friends, I buy on price.
Re:Putting it into context (Score:3, Insightful)
Customer service still sucks. (Score:2, Insightful)
I have five newer Dell systems at home and at this time I wouldn't buy a keyboard from them due to my recent
experience with Dell customer service. I spent five grand to get insulted by a condescending customer service staff.
No thank you I will pay more for better service.
Re:How is this like the Compaq thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also people who are neopyhtes buy HP products because of the commericals they see on TV. THey just want a pc to do work and showing what the pc can do and including great software for graphics makes their life easier. ITs not like they can go just buy a Dell. They would need to know the number and website. For a neophyte driving to the closest circuit city or best buy is where you go to get a new system.
Physical Retail vs. Internet Mail Order (Score:5, Insightful)
Fast forward to 2006 though and the picture isn't so rosy for Dell. The average inflation-adjusted price of a new PC is probably closer to $1000 today. The shipping costs alone can add 5% or more to the cost of a PC, not to mention the added hassle if there's a problem and you need to return it. So Dell's mail order model has become something of a disadvantage. Everybody has implemented the kind of component and assembly optimization Dell pioneered, and they're all just putting together kits of standardized equipment supplied by the same handful of vendors - Intel, nVidia, ATI, etc., so Dell gains no traction there. The standard $1000 PC comes with so many built-in features there's little demand for the kind of customization that once set Dell apart.
On the cost side, Carly butchered HP's workforce, so a lot of the old R&D overhead is gone, and HP has the combined retail channel of both the old HP and Compaq, plus all of their old corporate accounts. There are fewer retail players to deal with as well, lowering HP's costs even more, and HP's size gives them more leverage to push retailers around with. In this new environment, HP is poised to beat Dell at their own game.
The only problem is, this has turned into an extremely low-margin game for all of the players. HP makes a lot of revenue off the PC market, but their margins are all in corporate hardware and services and of course in printer ink that costs more per-ounce than gold. Beyond that, they're now a hollowed-out shell, living off of support for legacy products designed and frequently sold a decade ago. Corporate hardware is slowly marching down the commoditization path as well, though it's probably 5-10 years behind the kind of margin erosion we've seen in the PC space.
IBM saw what was coming and bailed on the PC market a couple of years ago, retreating entirely to the corporate space. HP bet the company on beating Dell, and while it looks like they may in fact pull that feat off, my guess it's going to be a pyrrhic victory. I think the PC market isn't going to be worth diddlysquat in a couple of years. Apple is rapidly carving out a big niche for itself in the only remaining retail segment that's profitable - the high end. That leaves everybody else - Lenovo, HP, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Gateway - to squabble over the low margin to no margin mid and low end of the market. I think it's only a matter of time before most of them are squeezed out, leaving probably just Lenovo and either Dell or HP standing.
Which of those two ultimately wins out probably depends upon when the Chinese enter the printer market and begin to consume market share from HP. If it happens within the next 3 years, Dell will probably be victorious, as HP will have its legs shot out from beneath it due to the drop in sales of their highest-margin retail product, printer ink. If cheap printer rivals don't enter the market in the next 3 years, HP will probably survive as the other big player in the PC market, leaving Dell to implode as their revenues continue to decline.
In the end, IBM will probably buy out the loser in that battle, take the corporate hardware and service for its
Re:HP Quality (Score:3, Insightful)
PCChips is made in China, and so is Gigabyte... Are you going to tell me they have the same quality, because they're made in the same country?