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

To: Geoff Nunn who wrote (48356)	6/20/1998 9:21:00 PM
From: JRI	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 176387

Geoff- A follow-up to the 1st Q market share numbers posted by Meat: A few thoughts: I am certain that if we were to break out these numbers to include sales to large corporations only (80%+ of Dell's overall PC sales, I believe, and the main driver for growth) we would find fewer vendors on the list, and a bigger concentration of marketshare among the big 5. So, I am intrigued by the recent announcement by Micron that they will no longer compete in the big corporate space. (Micron, as you may recall, is run by a former Dell guy). Wouldn't you think he would know most of Dell's tricks, and could emulate their success in the large company market, and compete effectively (at least for some accounts)? After all, they are a direct player.....So, this leads me to believe that Dell has some advantages (not relating to just being a direct seller) that give them some sort of "insurmountable" edge in the eyes of this new Micron CEO....Is it that to play in the big corporate space you need to be able to offer competitive server, workstation- low, mid and/or high? This wouldn't make sense to me, either, because Dell was selling PC's (only, primarily) to large companies before they started their efforts in servers, workstations, storage, right? So, what other "big" advantages does Dell have that would scare Micron out of the corporate space? Cost effeciences? The ability to deliver large unit transactions quickly? Couldn't Micron do these things? And if Micron sees they can't compete in this space...what about some of the smaller, non-direct sellers....What chance do they have/will they have in the large corporate market (now and in the future).. What I'm trying to get at is that maybe the barriers to entry to Dell's bread and butter, the large corporate market, is indeed pretty high (and maybe getting higher)...that firms that USED to sell (like many on the list Meat provided) can not compete anymore for any significant business, and are destined, in the short run, to be a niche small-business and/or consumer player and, in the long run, to exit the business. Maybe the barriers to entry in the consumer space are lower, and therefore, these bit players can hang around, make a little money, or be a lost leader... Am I missing something here? If not, Wouldn't this be an(other) extroadinarily bullish trend that Dell is riding/has been riding? On a different note: Someone posted a link in the last few days to an article that interviewed some IT managers who saw their corporations going to a 24 month upgrade cycle vs. 36 months previously...Is this a larger trend, or are they exceptions...Wouldn't this run counter to the viewpoint (posted by some on the thread) about the Gartner Group and "needed only a 266 to get the job done"? Also, on Meat's list, you will notice a few "local champions" (NEC Japan, Vobis, Legend)...These firms probably have no shot (or plan) at being able to sell products elsewhere than their local markets....The big international players (the big five) have been selling on their turf, and I would think that the big five, due to their scale, will be able to more effeciently produce globally (in all markets) than these "local players" at some point (depending on which of the big 5 you are talking about!).....I would think that the local champions will concentrate their efforts on the consumer/small business segments...that the large corporate segment would be their least competitive segment...... Would love to hear from Rude, Meat, Chuzz on this too....