Fortune
May 25, 1998
SECTION: TECHNO FILE/INFOTECH/AGONY OF DEFEAT; Pg. 158
LENGTH: 296 words
HEADLINE: Dell Delivers; HP Eats Crow
BYLINE: David Kirkpatrick
Dell Computer, the pride of Austin, Texas, and the envy of the personal
computer world, just got a little more enviable. In our last issue, we explained
the Dell miracle in detail and reported that some competitors were still
unimpressed. Jim McDonnell, Hewlett-Packard's marketing boss for PCs, insisted
in the cover story that his company can deliver a machine to a customer faster
than Dell, even though HP ships through a reseller. He dared us to conduct a
test. "Try it," he said. "Buy a Dell. See how long it takes you to get one. I
guarantee it will take at least a week. If it doesn't, I'll pay for it." We did. It didn't. He owes us.
On Friday night, April 17, we got on the Internet, logged on to
www. dell. com, and ordered up a state-of-the-art screamer with one of Intel's
just-released 400 megahertz microprocessors. This baby has 64 megabytes of RAM,
a 6.4-gigabyte hard drive, and a 17-inch monitor, among other features. It costs
only $ 2,399. We did not opt for overnight delivery (an extra $ 30). And to
ensure that Dell wouldn't recognize an order from FORTUNE and give us special
treatment, I had the machine sent to my home. It arrived the afternoon of
Wednesday, April 22.
McDonnell is relatively gracious in defeat, but he's not even considering
backing down. "Every once in a while the moons line up," he concedes. "But as
far as corporate customers go, I stand by my comments." He was willing to pay
up, too, but we decided to let him off the hook, figuring that the appearance of
this article was a high enough price to pay. Besides, Hewlett-Packard has
absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. The latest data from research firms
Dataquest and IDC show that HP remains the fastest-growing major PC maker on the
planet.
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