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

To: stock bull who wrote (174037)	3/29/2004 6:57:36 AM
From: Bill Jackson	Respond to of 176387

Stockbull, Dell, for all it's size, has a smaller amount of money for service and maintenance than the others. In the good old days Compaq/HP used to send you new parts by fedex and you sent the old one back in the same box. Now they use UPS and it takes longer. All part of the general decline in computer prices. Less price = less $$ for service etc. I recall 8088 comuters at $10,000 with a 5 meg drive and 64 K. Now you get 1000's of times the power for $500. All they can allocate for sevice, on average is 1-2% of the box price = $5-10. In the old days that was $100-200. based on $10,000 inquirerinside.com Bill

To: stock bull who wrote (174037)	3/29/2004 2:53:12 PM
From: John Koligman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 176387

I don't have the last few surveys in front of me, but as I recall Dell service scores were not as good as in past years, and in some categories others like IBM were better. Not sure what you mean about the cost structure giving them an edge in service, it certainly means they can make money selling boxes where other firms can't, but that doesn't necessarily translate into better service. One might think it should, especially since Dell used to provide 3 year service on every box it sold. Now, they charge extra for anything over a year, and if you like, you can pay even more on top of that if you want 'priority phone access to service personnel'. Best regards, John