John -
I agree that Capellas has been largely invisible to the general public, and certainly to wall street. I guess we'll know pretty soon if that was a good or a bad plan. I have heard some good things about him from customers who have met with him. I am reserving judgement until I see what results he brings in, in my mind "the proof is in the pudding".
Also agree that the CPQ "Active Answers" ads are weak. I like the newer simplified ads better. At least they give some sense of company direction and "personality" which the old ones did not do at all.
Likewise, I think that the market share battle was foolish. Clearly IBM got killed with their loss leaders, and HP did not do much better. Looking at the numbers, CPQ was no worse than the others, but what did it buy them?
I think that the smaller players will continue to be marginalized to the point where they drop out - Packard-Bell being a prime example. IBM will, I think, reposition their PC line as an adjunct to their overall systems business. HP was moving in that direction but who knows where Carley will take them.
As far as CPQ dying on the vine, the top line will be the measure of that. In the PC space, the recent numbers are actually better than I expected, given the turmoil in the company. We should know later today how their enterprise business is going, which is really the key for CPQ going forward.
DELL should be in an increasingly good position WRT suppliers. That is being counteracted by the other forces acting on them in their new leadership role. I am looking for them to work out their enterprise strategy which is unclear to me at the moment, especially with the IBM moves. But clearly DELL has gone from bit player to well known underdog to industry leader. That usually requires a great deal of management agility and induces some culture shock. MSFT did it, Intel did it... it can certainly be done. |
