Steve, my take is that this will acclerate the BTO/CTO model. A company just can't afford to have inventory on hand, and Dell
does an admirable job of that. CPQ's (and HWP's and IBM's) problem
is that while they keep their in house inventories low, their channel
partners end up with the inventory (I also own Vanstar, with 4 turns
a year, but claims fill price protect on all inventory this quarter).
Besides, last time I checked, Dell doesn't even need to make a profit
on PCs to make a Buck. Their Days Payable exceeds their inventory
days plus receivable days, so they can actually make a few bucks interest off the float their payment cycle. To me, that's impressive.
I'm beginning to sense a theme with htese early releases, whether from DD cos, Intel, or CPQ. It's all an inventory problem, not a
demand issue. I beginning to suspect otherwise, but I'm not really
smart enough to know for sure.
In answer to your question as to why other enterprises should carry
the inventory risk, all I vcan think of is that Dell et. al. are
the proverbial 800 pound gorillas.
Carl |
