Ali, There is some truth in what you say about low cost stuff a few years ago, however the fabrication and distribution chain for the screwdriver shops has become very efficient and the weak suppliers have been gotten rid of. All cases, power supplies, motherboards and cards are all made in highly automated high volume factories in China, India, Malaysia, and other areas that were traditionally hand solder board heavens and hammered tin case zones. this is all gone. All these third world countries have very large capital intensive factories. This, along with chip sets for mobos and vid cards etc has given us the deflation we have seen. Good keyboards for $6, mice for $3, cases for $8 and power supplies for $12-23. Since hand labor has been eliminated and the parts are standard and the circuits have evolved to a robust and repeatable cheap state you cannot say that compaq power supplies are better than joe clonos, they are probably made side by side in the same factory.
The compaqs have an edge in the OS, as they have old bulk deals and pay less than joe clono. same with bundled office 97 etc, joe clono cannot get those deals. But joe clono can get good ASUS mobos, and with the excellent delivery system in the USA can get quite a good price for 20 cases by UPS and so for all the other parts that allows him to make a very good product that is taking share from the compaqs every day. The extra tier that compaq has in the dealer distribution is what he can live on.
I feel though that all the multi tiered operators are going under great pressure from the Dell model as soon they must all adopt it or die. The screwdriver shops lack brand names and brand marketing. Perhaps they should all get together and make a standard label and case style and then chase the custome market with unique boxes made locally.
Bill |
