Drew and Chuz,
The Wall Street Journal today ran an ad by Compaq DirectPlus. Inadvertently, it seems to bear out CPQ's lengthy inventory lag which you suggested. The ad features a CPQ Deskpro P-II 266, a business PC priced at $1399. I called CPQ and was told that this PC only comes with W-95. It does provide a $29 upgrade coupon.
Hmmm... Windows 98 was officially launched on June 20th. On or about that date, Dell did a 100% transition to Win 98 on all its desktop systems. Presumably CPQ did as well. The fact that this is a W-95 PC, and has only a P-266 processor, suggests it was manufactured prior to June 20th. That would mean it has been sitting around in someone's inventory for at least 9 weeks.
According to CPQ, if purchased today there would be a wait of 7-10 days to receive the PC. When this figure is added, the time from the date of manufacture to the PC reaching the consumer will have been a minimum of 75 days.
Summary: This PC appears to have been manufactured nearly 11 weeks ago or perhaps even longer. I don't claim this is indicative of CPQ efficiency. Nonetheless, it does seem to support the conclusion that CPQ doesn't have its inventory situation under control.
Geoff |
