I don't understand what you're trying to say.
Compaq would continue to launch new products, despite falling growth, to try to stanch the blood. And those new products would be consistent with thin-client computing, which is where we started this discussion.
I don't know what you mean by "losing its USP."
And yes, PC's are a low-margin commodity -- that's part of my point. While we're on that subject, perhaps you can explain something to me that seems to have entered the common wisdom, but which is anything but clear to me. If the channel is so inefficient, why are other commodity sellers able to survive? Last time I checked, not many people bought their groceries over the Internet direct from farmers. In fact, MOST commodities are sold via channels, precisely because they ARE commodities.
I know you've got stars in your eyes for Intel, and it is a fine company (I even used to own shares in it, and they made me quite a bit of money -- one definition of a fine company!), but it's hardly perfect. They've had plenty of failures of their own (e.g. Pentiums that got the wrong FP answers, very late products, etc.). BTW, I fearlessly predict that Intel will run increasingly quickly away from Microsoft as the era of the PC winds down.
JMHO. |
