To tsyl and thread --
Dell Rocks and Rolls in Large Commercial Business
by Matt Sargent Sr. Analyst, PC Software and Hardware
(this link has nice Dell vs CQP charts)
zdinfobeads.com
Dell will be releasing their third quarter financials shortly, and the newest data from ZD Market Intelligence shows that once again Dell will show dramatically impressive results. On a simple year-over-year unit basis, Dell sold 66% more units in 3Q 1998 than in 3Q of 1997 - all this at a time when the worldwide market barely grew 15%.
While it is wonderful to proclaim the victories of Dell, we all know that this bandwagon is currently overflowing with praise from any
analyst with a clue of the current market situation. What is more important is to look and see where Dell is showing its strongest growth from whom Dell is taking share.
Traditionally Dell has done very well within small and medium business and in government sites. Compaq, IBM, and others have fostered marketing programs to improve their market share within these smaller business sites in hopes of taking Dell head on. These marketing programs, while making sense individually, may be missing a much larger problem.
In the latest data a new trend emerged showing that Dell is making dramatic gains in the very spot where Compaq and IBM initially
fostered their respective PC businesses - the large commercial business segment. Preliminary results from ZD Market Intelligence's
Projected Market Monitor study show that in the third quarter of this year, Dell became the No.1 PC provider to commercial sites with over 500 employees.
Traditionally Dell has had some success in large sites, but this has mainly been within large government and educational sites, not the
large commercial sites where Compaq and IBM have long been the dominant players. As can be seen in the chart below, Compaq and IBM still own the largest chunks of the installed base within large commercial sites, but if the purchasing trend from the third quarter of this year continues, this installed base market can be expected to quickly shift to Dell.
This importance of this large installed base to Compaq and IBM cannot be underestimated. These large enterprises account for a huge percentage of their respective business and additionally tend to be segments that provide much higher margins due to the large scale service and support programs that come hand in hand with these accounts. Compaq and IBM would be well advised to look closely at the gains Dell has made in this segment and devise a program that will focus on holding onto the large commercial segments in which they currently still possess strongholds. |
