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

To: TTOSBT who wrote (135435)	7/3/1999 9:58:00 AM
From: Meathead	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 176387

RE: when Lou Gershner first said: "The PC is dead" instead of taking it literally to mean the industry they should of taken it to mean IBM's participation... Right. That's basically what Lou meant... the PC as a growth engine for IBM's revenues and profits is dead. That much we can glean from their income statement. What nobody is willing to admit publicly is that to a large extent, everyone else's lousy profitability showing in the PC space is directly due to Dell. Everyone else became entrenched in the wrong business model and now there is little they can do about it. Their strategy looks like it will be to gracefully exit the PC biz replacing it with other opportunities or more likely, letting someone else do it for them more efficiently.... keeping their brand name alive in support of their other business initiatives. The PC is anything but dead. Pricing may be coming down (as it always has) but volumes are still increasing. This platform wont go away, die, or be replaced by small armies of handheld gadgets. How low will the price of a PC go... realisticly? Some analysts and pundits have no capacity for non-linear thinking. Last year the PC was at $899, today it's FREE, tomorrow it will be -$899, therefore the business is ruined. We all know the FREE PC isn't really free, it's a gamble by ISP's to win business. I posted a fairly long dissertation as to why this model won't be sustainable... and, I posted an article that gives thought to the concept that internet access could soon become free as well. If AT&T and MSN were to partner and offer free internet access, I think the free PC concept would evaporate overnight. IMO, the ASP of the average capable PC will stick at around $500, just like a good 27" television. Price points will occur on both sides of that number from the highly integrated ultra cheapies the the more sophisticated feature laden and higher quality. PC's are full of parts that cost money, the economic value will find it's quiescent point as all consumer electronics have. MEATHEAD