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

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (47486)	6/13/1998 10:43:00 PM
From: Paul Reuben	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Somewhat OT: "Compaq Officials Vow To Challenge Intel" washingtonpost.com

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (47486)	6/14/1998 11:00:00 AM
From: jbn3	Respond to of 176387

DELL's R&D effort Chuz da Cat, Good morning, Paul! I merely posted DELL's R&D figures for the past three years; I did not speculate on how DELL spends its R&D budget. However, since you ask... <g> 1. Note that DELL's R&D spending trends upwards. Therefore, I expect that the $126,000,000 spent in 1997 will be surpassed by the FY98 figures. That is a lot of money to spend on R&D, especially for a company which, by some people's estimation though not mine, is 'just a boxmaker, an assembler of parts'. 2. We know that DELL's R&D effort has yielded a reasonable store of patents (Although not comparable to the numbers held by IBM, DEC, HWP or even CPQ, those companies are involved in a much broader market and product spectrum than DELL). We can get some idea of their area of concentration from reading the published awards for this year (main DELL SI thread posts #29045, 29858, 30807, 34500, 36140, 36142, 38400, 39994, 40142, 45690). Perhaps a more technically knowledgeable person could help ascertain in which areas DELLs patents generally fall: whether assembly, electronics design, structural efficiency or something else. 3. Meathead has frequently posted data on the problems of engineering 'box' construction, on the minute tolerances required to allow performance, much less to maximize it, and to create better synergies. Nobody has been able to refute his knowledge in this area, so let's assume he knows what he is talking about. Based on that assumption and the data he has provided, as a layman I would assume that increasingly complex equipment requires additional research to make it work well. So I would suspect DELL is spending some R&D dollars in the area of electronic design as well. (I am sure someone will tell me if I'm way off base here <gg>) 4. If I were in charge of R&D at DELL (everyone on the thread can thank their lucky stars I'm not!), I know that I'd be looking at (at a minimum) a) factory and facility design b) installation line design c) individual product physical design d) individual product electronic design e) future product development f) market trends I personally attribute a lot of DELL's success in the server and portable markets to their R&D effort. Maybe it pays to spend some money to make a reliable and usable product. Sorry if that grew too long. Just musing on a Sunday morning. Regards, 3.