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

To: rudedog who wrote (85985)	12/18/1998 11:01:00 AM
From: BGR	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176388

Rudedog, My understanding from reading the IDC report posted earlier in the thread is that CPQ server sales in dollar terms is less than both IBM and HWP and not that much more than that of SUNW. As I am sure you know very well but just to recap for the sake of making the distinction clear unit sales mean very little in the server domain because of the very wide (low 5 figures - high 7 figures+) range in price tags. Note that Sun ranks well below CPQ and DEC in server sales but above DELL in dollar terms and not that far off than CPQ, which is primarily due to DEC's server sales I presume. The higher end is still very much the winner and I think will be more so in the days to come with the Internet. I therefore agree with your assessment of the challenges that DELL faces. I would add another one - IBM, HWP, SUNW and CPQ each have their own high end server O/S but DELL doesn't. The flip side of course is better ability to focus and benefit from MSFT's "research" (;-)) due to less distractions, unability of which I continue to believe is CPQ's major weak point. -Apratim.

To: rudedog who wrote (85985)	12/18/1998 11:42:00 AM
From: Reginald Middleton	Respond to of 176388

<DELL has done well to get into the top 5 in unit volumes, but the hard part of the hill is still in front of them. They will need a very coherent strategy in both servers and storage to continue their growth. They will also need to build a services capability without disrupting their business model. These are hard challenges.> I agree. Dell's primary advantage is that it has a much more efficient business model which produces much more disposable cash than all of the server vendors save Sun. I have developed a comps model which ranks the computer manufacturers by cashflow, margin and equity appreciation. Sun is first, Dell is second. If Dell treads carefully, they can pull off a strategic acquisistion without much pain. They can also afford more than many to grow a new server sales and support business model more than most.