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

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (107238)	3/4/1999 4:57:00 PM
From: Frank Ellis Morris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

>>Kumar also said in the interview that the perceived slow growth in PC sales is an overstatement of facts,he said the PC sales figures are rather healthy and it would have been even much more robust if it weren't for the Y2K thing and continued say that even that may not be a factor to stop the sales growth in PCs,so there all this 'slow growth' business is somebody's wild imagination and not the reality,company specific problems notwithstanding. << If Kumar said all this he cannot be that bad. I will have to treat him to lunch at McDonalds. If he can get Dell back at 110 again I may offer to treat him to an early bird dinner somewhere more upgrade. Frank

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (107238)	3/4/1999 4:58:00 PM
From: Boplicity	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 176387

God I can't take it first Murphy now Kumar, the two of them have been WRONG so many times... They are like the Jinx Brothers... bad omen.. Now I'm bearish again, only for as long as type that sentence though....<gg> schizoidman

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (107238)	3/4/1999 5:02:00 PM
From: William F. Wager, Jr.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 176387

Here's a great short historical profile of Dell from the WSJ..enjoy... Dell Computer doesn't have cows -- that's for rival Gateway -- but it does have clout. The computer maker now records sales of more than $14 million a day through its Web site alone. By improving its product process and refocusing the company on the computer-savvy consumers and corporations that are its core customers, Dell has thrived in the brutally competitive personal-computer marketplace and emerge as one of its most profitable players -- and the top dog in direct sales. It's quite a ride for a company started in 1983 in a University of Texas dorm room. Michael Dell, then just 19, was unimpressed by the quality of machines and customer service at computer stores, and figured he could do it better himself. He started buying excess inventory from computer dealers (an out-the-back-door enterprise, as IBM had a strict policy against reselling), beefed the machines up with graphics cards and more hard-drive space, and then resold them. Soon, Mr. Dell and a small group of engineers were designing their own machines; by the time he was 21, Mr. Dell's company, then called pc's Ltd., had $60 million in sales. Mr. Dell's big break came in 1986 when Austin, Texas, venture capitalist E. Lee Walker came on board for a five-year stint as president and chief of operations. Mr. Walker provided the managerial and financial experience that Mr. Dell lacked. The company's sales skyrocketed, zooming to $546 million in 1991 and $2 billion in 1993. Dell has long been a darling on Wall Street. It's had seven stock splits in seven years, and -- except for a series of missteps amid hyperactive growth in the early 90s -- has been widely considered the Rolls Royce of mail-order houses. And while many high-tech whiz kids have been tripped up when their companies outgrew their management skills, Mr. Dell has never been afraid to seek help or to rely on mentors, such as Mr. Walker; Morton H. Meyerson, chairman of Perot Systems; and Morton L. Topfer, a senior Motorola executive. Mr. Dell has figured out, sometimes painfully, what Dell shouldn't do. The company foundered in the late 1980s with a project called Olympic designed to deliver a Dell-built workstation. Olympic was a failure that sapped the company's resources, leading to delays in the introduction of other products. The early 1990s saw a series of other missteps. Dell registered big losses in foreign-currency futures and interest-rate derivatives as it tried to generate profits with high-risk investments. Worrisome talk of technical glitches and delays in delivery hurt the company's reputation. An overly aggressive advertising campaign forced it to pay rival Compaq Computer to end litigation. In 1993, a notebook line had to be scrapped, and Dell posted its first ever quarterly loss. It rushed to put its products into retail stores such as Wal-Mart and CompUSA, only to find that its made-to-order manufacturing scheme was too expensive for such low-margin channels. Some whispered that Mr. Dell had lost his magic touch; at one point, the company was down to $20 million in cash. But Mr. Dell found inspiration in the rapid turnaround at Compaq. He overhauled management and adopted formal planning and budgeting processes. Instead of growth at all costs, the company stressed earnings and liquidity. And it learned the value of focus -- as Mr. Dell once remarked, "It's easy to say what you're going to do. The hard thing is figuring out what you're not going to do." What Dell does is build computers, deliver them quickly and keep its customers happy -- whether those customers are home users or large companies. (Like Compaq and IBM, Dell has added sales and engineering teams dedicated solely to certain large corporate clients.) The company has set standards in the industry for slim inventory -- and racked up revenue and stock-price gains that are the envy of the industry. It has always built computers only when ordered, preventing a backlog of outdated machines from building up. But in recent years, it has gone even further to trim its inventory, taking delivery of some components just minutes before they are needed. A Dell PC can be built, fitted with software, tested and packed up for shipping in just eight hours. Now, Dell is trying to convert the rest of the world to its direct-marketing model. The company trails Compaq by a considerable sales margin in Latin America, the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe -- regions where buying direct is a fairly new idea. Catching up with its rival will require a big effort from Dell, analysts say, but that effort could unlock a huge market. Can the company deliver? Well, for the period ended Feb. 1, 1998, Dell sales in Japan and other Asia-Pacific countries jumped 79% and sales in Europe grew 61%, compared with 51% growth in North America. It was the first time in years that sales grew faster internationally than at Dell's huge North American unit -- and a clear indication that the company's strategy is succeeding. Since then, that stunning growth has continued, as have a series of dizzyingly successful quarters that have left investors walking on air -- and competitors running scared. --Bill