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

To: Father E. who wrote (40767)	5/7/1998 2:51:00 PM
From: Trey McAtee	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

father-- again, you arent looking at this from the right market. dell sells something like 70-80% through to non-consumers. in that market, i do not think that they are far off their competitors. hell, IBM sells a basic machine to the business market for 1300, while i can get a better one at best buy for 800. granted, if i am a consumer i am probably not going to buy from dell.they are too expensive, and i dont need all the support they offer. but, you shouldnt use me as an example...i buy clones from local stores. right now, dell really isnt targeting the consumer market, they dont need it. when they do, you can be sure they will be just as agressive as they were in the non-consumer market, and they will be just as sucessful. they havent even really targeted it and it is still coming to them. as a side note, to break into the consumer market in a big way, i would support a buyout of GTW. from what i've heard, those stores they have are doing pretty well. better to do it that way than sell through compusa or best buy. good luck to all, trey

To: Father E. who wrote (40767)	5/7/1998 4:26:00 PM
From: Geoff Nunn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 176387

Father, You may be the very first person here to suggest Dell products are overpriced. We've seen lots of other folks -- mostly bears who come and go, take a very different view. They claim that pc's are a commodity. If a good is a commodity, any two brands are perfect substitutes by definition. If pc's are a commodity, any two similarly configured systems from two different boxmakers would be priced the same, and Dell would not be able to overprice its boxes. Informed buyers will not purchase brand A when perfect substitute brand B is available for less money. Of course, pc's are not really a commodity. Anyone who has followed this thread knows better, thanks to earlier, excellent posts especially by Meathead. Nevertheless, it doesn't follow that Dell can price higher than its competitors. Perhaps IBM and CPQ at one time could do that. Today, high-end buyers are too sophisticated, too well informed and have too many choices. Dell's currently brisk growth rate in the face of so much competition strongly suggests its prices are competitive. What more proof do you want?