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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patrick E.McDaniel who wrote (131885)	6/9/1999 12:15:00 AM
From: BGR	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Patrick, I understand that, but my point is that w/o DELL placing its s/w on the screen non-DELL customers will never even know of dellnet. Even today where AOL has bought real estate from virtually every single main line boxmakers they still send out s/w on CDs. Is DELL going to do that? Let's assume that to be the case, which means IOW that DELL is getting into the ISP business. I doubt if giving free access away is the way to go in that domain. Today there are ISPs in USA that give people money to surf the net (beyond free, that is). OTOH, AOL remains more expensive than several other ISPs but users do not switch because of the so-called stickiness. And distraction of fighting with AOL is precisely what DELL doesn't need at this momemt. I was very happy with the smb market segment win. I would be happier if DELL continues to be a superior executor instead of taking pages out of AMZN. In particular, the financial benefits of providing free ISP to non-DELL customers completely eludes me. Seems like DELL is acting a bit like Microwrokz in this case. -BGR.

To: Patrick E.McDaniel who wrote (131885)	6/9/1999 10:13:00 AM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 176387

Patrick - When this is applied in the US all ISP's are in real trouble! Yea, that's why MSN stole the market and wiped out all the ISP's-- NOT!! MSFT had MUCH greater market visibility and still has virtual control of the "initial desktop experience" and MSN has not moved to a dominant position. Also has cost MSFT a lot of $$$$, by some estimates well over $2B. Do you really think that a similar sized DELL investment, with less chance of success (I hope you are not arguing that DELL is a better known brand than MSFT???) is a long term good idea. Straight infrastructure costs for providing the ISP connections run between $3 and $7 per month depending on whether you own the infrastructure or "lease" it through service arrangements. How does DELL make money doing this again?