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

To: edamo who wrote (133065)	6/16/1999 9:52:00 PM
From: Meathead	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 176387

Re: ...but do you do challenge the behemoths for service with a slow organic move or do you ramp up quickly by acquiring an established service entity.. That's a good question. I'm sure MD and co. have been looking at it from both angles. A Unisys acquisition I believe was a subject on the thread a while back... but I didn't follow that discussion closely. Anyway, it seems Dell could buy 30k employees for about $13B. The issue may be it's cheaper to rent than buy at this time. Unisys service offerings pale in comparison to where Dell should go. Also, many of the expanded services are in areas where Dell is already quickly developing competency and a presence on their own. I think Rudedog could set us straight on who actually does what for whom. Still, it is an intriguing proposition. Regardless, from following this company for 10 years, acquisitions are just not part of the corporate mindset so if they did acquire a company, I'd be surprised.... you never know. But, in the same way Dell was able to slowly overtake IBM in PC sales through organic growth (which we all know couldn't be done), they could apply the approach to services. It just takes longer, and in the interim, Dell will still be growing earnings. The industry is still in it's infancy and there are just too many opportunities to pursue but it's probably as safe bet to assume the need for services will be an order of magnitude greater 10 years from now than it is today so I'm not completely convinced that it if Dell doesn't achieve critical mass soon, they'll be shut out of the game. The acquisition approach could inflict a lot of intermediate term damage on the company and it's financials... I'm not sure shareholders would be pleased. The corporate philosophy has been one of controlled growth. I do understand your concern with market perceptions, future valuations and wall street's impatience. I'm not sure how the stock will be valued going forward from here but I'm convinced that managing your stock price for the short term is not as important as managing your business for the long term. Dell's recent slurry of announcements has been received tepidly. The strategies have not been communicated to the public as clearly and concicely as they are in the tech conferences and analyst love-ins... but if memory serves me, it's always been this way. Two parts of the story we know for sure that have changed somewhat. 1. Dell will now aggressively target the consumer space. 2. Dell will increase it's focus on growing service offerings by expanding high end alliances, technology consulting and application solution centers. The presentation is not clear as to the addressable market opportunity for the different categories of services... I'm still trying to figure it out... wish I was at the conference to hear the supporting dialogue. But the most immediate focus, I believe is to rapidly transition all the way to their internet model and wring out all the implied efficiencies. I'll post later as to why I think this is far more important than most people realize. MEATHEAD