Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: calgal who wrote (162791)	11/15/2000 12:40:18 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Dell Aims At Servers, Storage By Charles Babcock, Interactive Week November 14, 2000 10:09 AM ET Dell Computer has become the leading seller of Intel-based computers through its direct sales model over the Internet. Now Chairman Michael Dell in a speech at Comdex Monday, pledged to do for servers and storage what Dell has done for PCs, laptops and workstations. "In the U.S. one out of every four servers sold is sold by Dell," he said, and the company has just started to focus on how it can maximize the advantages of its business model for the server market. Dell already has a contract with the U.S. Navy to supply 66 Dell server farms with a total of 2,000 terabytes of storage, he noted. If it can fulfill this contract, there are many businesses that can use Dell's products, he said. Dell sells $50 million a day in PCs and servers through its Web site, which projects its parts, needs out into its supply chain shortly after the orders are captured. From there, suppliers deliver parts to Dell factories, where within two hours they find their way into a finished machine, Dell said. "The value of components goes down at the rate of one percent a week," said Dell, whose firm has perfected just-in-time delivery of needed components in order to avoid losses due to the declining value of its inventory. By squeezing costs out of manufacturing, Dell is able to produce a product line that consistently undercuts the competition on price. Dell gained the top position by perfecting the process of letting customers configure their desired PC or workstation on the Dell Web site, and then manufacturing that machine to order. Unlike its competitors, Dell has built real time ordering of parts into its supply chain system. The computer is sometimes shipped to the customer the next day, he noted. The efficiency and cost squeezing practiced by Dell's organization has slowly brought it to the top of the heap from back in the crowd over the last six years. In 1995, it ranked sixth in desktop sales. Today it is number one, and Dell predicted his Round Rock, Texas, firm will do the same thing in servers and storage through its online customer ordering systems and just-in-time manufacturing. Instead of retreating in the face of critics, Dell said an estimated 250,000 PCs have been sold since skeptics first proclaimed the death of the PC. "It's pretty good being in business in the post-PC era," he said. Sun Microsystems Chairman Scott McNealy gave voice to some of that criticism a year ago in an address to Comdex. Dell said the PC would be around as part of network computing, not made obsolete by it. If anything, he responded, the PC is the most adaptable advice to continue to lead Internet computing. "I wonder what the employees of Sun do when they are on an airplane-put a server in the overhead compartment?" said Dell. In addition to being able to dial into a central server, Dell is rapidly developing the capability to keep its PC users connected by a wireless device. Dell will face a PC market that is slowing down and competition in servers and storage from Sun, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and EMC. Dell's most recent quarterly results fell below the gains analysts had anticipated. zdnet.com