You are right. Going forward is all that matters. But
it's important to know where we are today so we can accurately
asses what the new data, as it becomes available, is telling
us.
Regarding HP and Dell, don't forget, Dell is staying loyal to
Intel as well, is one of their best customers, and gets excellent pricing... in the past 3 years, Dell has sold more Intel processors than HP.
As far as pricing.. overall, Dell has the advantage.
You have no idea how close they really are at the low end.
The $799 HP machine you quote is not designed for the corporation.
HP has a entry level corp box for ~$950, it needs a $250 monitor
bringing the price to ~$1200. Dell's NetPC with monitor is ~$1200.
I won't get into the gory feature details.
The ONLY space Dell is not in today is that 8.4% expanding market
of desktopsub-zero home buyers. When the business sub-zero catagory for desktops really starts to emerge this year in terms of volume, Dell will be there offering exactly what they offer today...
the lowest TCO. That's what business buys, period.
The fact remains that Dell's business model affords them strong
pricing advantages in hardware at any configuration they choose to
offer... HP, CPQ, IBM, will not be able to consistently meet or beat them on price over the long run until they succesfully change their operating models.
That's the reality. Dell is a teir1 company offering the tier2 pricing of Micron and Gateway. Ask scrapps.
MEATHEAD |
