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

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (54714)	7/28/1998 12:36:00 PM
From: jhg_in_kc	Respond to of 176387

Chuz AND ALL: THREAT TO DELL! Chuz states "GTW is a threat because it could be purchased by another company and used as a separately branded manufacturer expressly for the purpose of challenging Dell without jeopardizing the parent's market position." I find this observation deeply disturbing and feel its disserves the widest dissemination on this thread and the critical comments of Dell thread experts. You may indeed have identified a true threat to Dell. A competitor buying an in-place build to order just in time assembly and distribution structure with the factories in good working order, etc. then supplying it with product. Could CPQ do this, probably not in next few years. But from my limited knowledge of the computer industry, IBM might be a candidate to do this, acquire doomed Gateway and make it its build to order or custom order subsidiary. Based only on a lay person's knowledge of IBM, this would seem too much of an imaginative leap for Big Blue to make but you never know. What the thread should determine is how serious is this threat? How much would it cost to acquire GTW as a BTO subsidiary? How would this division of the larger corporation challenge Dell? How could Dell respond? How costly would this be to the challenger? How much damage would be done to Dell? Is there room for two efficient build to order companies in the business? And how much would this slow down Dell's growth? And how severely would this impact the price of the stocK? And how long would it take for the rival to be up and running? I wish you hadn't posted this in a sense. Now I will worry about what I beleive is the one chink in Dell's armor that I am aware of. How imminent is this threat, do you suppose? I am surprised someone hasn't thought of this before. thanks for the insight. jhg