Keith--
Good reply, thanks appreciate it. You are right, I was a bit
heated. <g> Heat gone.
Whether or not the PC box market is cyclical is somewhat a matter of
definition. It has periods of slower and faster growth ... but
so far no period of actual contraction. I think that's likely
to remain the case with worldwide increasing penetration, etc.,
especially for Dell, which as said before, is gaining share steadily.
I think that people underestimate Dell's advantages. For example,
in my estimation, Gateway is unlikely to make much headway
against Dell in the larger corporate space ... it would have to
figure out a way to significantly undercut Dell or build sig.
better performing boxes. Which will be very difficult to do.
Just shaving the price a bit (at the cost of really hurting their
margins, given Dell's cost advantages) isn't going to gain them
many major accounts. Corps. like to stick with someone they think
is a major long term, reliable player. Used to be said no one
got fired (from their corp. MIS position) for choosing IBM. Well
that now applies to Dell for desktops. And will apply for servers
soon as well, IMHO.
Regards, Doug |
