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Technology Stocks : DELL Bear Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (2407)	1/16/1999 8:16:00 AM
From: Dan B.	Respond to of 2578

Ok, reading your post I can once again imagine the calculator scenario you painted. It still feels like a dream though. You know your ex like I never will, yet dare I say when she gets on the net she'll find something wonderful to her in short order. E-bay antique shopping perhaps? Many writers still swear by the pen- and they are dying off quickly. Calculators do math. Computers do more than word processing if you want it. Prices for the high end machines have fallen too. I agree that value is in the low end, as 24 month obsolesence hits both ends. But gee, both will suffice for 10 years in all reality, as you've in fact pointed out. So obsolesence has no significance in that case... you might still want the faster unit if you know you are going to keep it, live with it, and call it good enough for 10 years to come. Shoot, I recommend the low end myself, for now, because I expect you are right, both the high and the low of todays systems will will handle about the same stuff in 10 years. But there will come a point when new high end machines are doing the currently unimaginable and highly desirable things dreams are made of. Then what? The gap- the marginal utility of spending that extra dollar may increase once again. But this is electronics, and prices for all models high and low should continue to fall. And they then may sell like hotcakes. And then even the high end is not much more expensive. Doubling costs doesn't mean much if you are going from a penny up to two pennies. Everyone will have one or two of the latest. I know a guy who lives under the official poverty levels who managed to buy at least 10 calculators he still doesn't need, so great was his fascination with their very existence. But at somepoint, the latest high end computer will be running virtual reality simulations the likes of which we can't imagine. It won't be cheap, and it won't be much like anything that filled our homes before. At some point such a system will fall to the two to four grand range where it can be sold in some numbers. Then something even greater will come alone that will cost way too much at first for but a few of us to buy- just the same- and so on. At least that's how I see it. Computers, unlike stereos and calculators, evolve in really radical ways. There will be lags followed by great leaps as the product itself begins to serve a different function. How and where will chips be used? So much to ponder. Great chips will be cheap, that's for sure. Hotcake sellers and new expensive systems and apps., will co-exist as far out as I can see. It seems certain that SOMETHING unexpected will always come along to fuel higher margin business as time marches on. You may have your finger on the demise of certain server sellers as we know them. But how about a server in every home- if they are going to be so cheap? Is that size of a market going to hurt Dell? I expect someone will be selling something wonderful and dearly wanted so long as the world turns. When it comes to Dell, they seem to be as ready as anyone to adapt to whatever market demands will bring. If they go down within a few years, the reasons will probably be quite surprising, i.e. someone selling something Dell can't get it's hands on- something proprietary which obviates the need for conventional computers altogether. But that's just a dream for now. And surely there will be some wonderful something for Dell to do? Only time will tell.

To: Bilow who wrote (2407)	1/21/1999 4:49:00 PM
From: JRI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2578

Carl- A couple sentences you wrote is not applicable (with the computer market)... "Consequently, the ASP for calculators dropped to the most effecient firm's cost of building them. That drove companies that were not vertically integrated out of the business".. Where are the vertically-integrated companies selling PC's (who are also the most effecient)?...Do not exist.. You are right...in a price war...the most efficient survive...Dell is more effecient in the segments they play in....The gap has not closed (significantly)...low-end PC's are not Dell's game...