I can't resist. I'll take the IDTI v. Dell Pepsi Challenge - my bet is that IDTI doubles before Dell.
I think Dell will continue to ride the wave of the "build to order" direct marketing business model that Michael Dell authored and helped to make successful. A part of that strategy that has become very important over the past few years has been to align Dell with the "Intel Inside" and Pentium brand name mantras. Along with a great tract record for delivery and service made possible by a streamlined inventory and finished goods system, that helped tremendously in Dell's moves into corporate America. What started out as a company that targeted the individual user and SOHO market has turned into a worthy competitor for mid-large size corporations and servers and workstations as well as desktops and portables. Without the connection to Intel that would have been much more difficult if not impossible.
IBM, Compaq, HP and others all have been improving their efforts to do "just in time" assembly and have partnered with TechData and other mega distributors for what's called "channel assembly" of brand name computer and network systems. Although that effort has yet to come stem Dells growth, their are now more players vying for market share using a similar business model.
What Dell is counting on is that Intels' next generation Celeron parts will be cheap enough and have high enough performance to beat back the clone competitors. If the difference in total system cost is only $100, then Dell may be able to stay successful with Intel only. Still, I have to think that this strategy will run out of steam if, as it appears to be likely, AMD, NSM and, maybe baby, IDTI, hit the market with quantities of lower cost with comparable performance "Super Socket 7" Microsoft supported 3DNow parts. And increasingly, AMD and others will have parts that will attach the portable, server and workstations segments of the market where Dell has recently been growing the fastest.
If Dell doubles before IDTI, the Pepsi is on me. |
