9 ms·

Dell’s Life After Wall Street

104 points by constantinum 12y ago

cpks 12y ago
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.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  DELL is at least trying and making some progress. Now looking at Samsung and Lenovo...ugh. Consumers are pretty flexible: just give them a decent product and they are willing to give up some choices (evidenced by mac sales).
- omonra 12y ago
  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.
  - gioele 12y ago
    > how good is your last laptop - is it good enough? No, it is not. My last "perfect for the moment" laptop was the latest G3 iBook (late 2002). After that nothing as been "perfect" anymore. I went thought many "good" laptops but I have always found hardware glitches (NVidia card overheating), missing ports (dear Dell, where is the SD card reader?), proprietary ports (Samsung and its three proprietary ports for video out _on the same laptop_), annoying keyboard layouts, glossy and too wide screens, chargers with connectors that are produced only for six months, firmwares with weird-but-well-known bugs that will never be solved.... There is always something.
  - yequalsx 12y ago
    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.
    - omonra 12y ago
      I'm with you. I've been an ardent PC-fanboy for decades but got the Air in 2010 (as there were no equivalent light pc notebooks). Initially ran Windows on it - then slowly switched to OSX and won't get a Windows notebook now.
polskibus 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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.
theicon 12y ago
Dell is trying to follow the Big Blue "IBM's" path.
dj-wonk 12y ago
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?
coldcode 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    For now. Time will tell. They will never pay off the debt.
- mikestew 12y ago
  It's easy to mock Dell's comment about AAPL now, but in 1997 what Mr. Dell said wasn't a bad idea. And if what you said about Dell the company were actually true, just because Michael was wrong (against strong odds of being right) once doesn't mean it wouldn't be a good idea for his own company now. But as another commenter pointed out, you're wrong about what actually happened with Dell recently.
netcan 12y ago
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 12y ago
  And i suspect we will soon see, if we are not already seeing, this play out in the mobile phone business as well.
virtualwhys 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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.
Pxtl 12y ago
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.
StevePerkins 12y ago
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.
chaostheory 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    > 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?
mathattack 12y ago
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.

104 points by constantinum 12y ago

cpks 12y ago

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.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
DELL is at least trying and making some progress. Now looking at Samsung and Lenovo...ugh. Consumers are pretty flexible: just give them a decent product and they are willing to give up some choices (evidenced by mac sales).
omonra 12y ago
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.
- gioele 12y ago
  > how good is your last laptop - is it good enough? No, it is not. My last "perfect for the moment" laptop was the latest G3 iBook (late 2002). After that nothing as been "perfect" anymore. I went thought many "good" laptops but I have always found hardware glitches (NVidia card overheating), missing ports (dear Dell, where is the SD card reader?), proprietary ports (Samsung and its three proprietary ports for video out _on the same laptop_), annoying keyboard layouts, glossy and too wide screens, chargers with connectors that are produced only for six months, firmwares with weird-but-well-known bugs that will never be solved.... There is always something.
- yequalsx 12y ago
  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.
  - omonra 12y ago
    I'm with you. I've been an ardent PC-fanboy for decades but got the Air in 2010 (as there were no equivalent light pc notebooks). Initially ran Windows on it - then slowly switched to OSX and won't get a Windows notebook now.

polskibus 12y ago

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 12y ago
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.

theicon 12y ago

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

dj-wonk 12y ago

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?

coldcode 12y ago

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 12y ago
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 12y ago
  For now. Time will tell. They will never pay off the debt.
mikestew 12y ago
It's easy to mock Dell's comment about AAPL now, but in 1997 what Mr. Dell said wasn't a bad idea. And if what you said about Dell the company were actually true, just because Michael was wrong (against strong odds of being right) once doesn't mean it wouldn't be a good idea for his own company now. But as another commenter pointed out, you're wrong about what actually happened with Dell recently.

netcan 12y ago

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 12y ago
And i suspect we will soon see, if we are not already seeing, this play out in the mobile phone business as well.

virtualwhys 12y ago

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 12y ago
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.

Pxtl 12y ago

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.

StevePerkins 12y ago

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.

chaostheory 12y ago

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 12y ago
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 12y ago
  > 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?

mathattack 12y ago

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.