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

To: arthur pritchard who wrote (117647)	4/14/1999 11:12:00 PM
From: Orlando Stevenson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

DELL + AOL Deal Hypothetical Well.. just some musing on a hypothetical AOL/DELL deal. Given Dell's size, willingness to go the Linux route and irk M$ (even if it's 1-2% of desktops now), and the potential w/packaged AOL deal- who else could squeeze supplier volume margins and deliver as well? IMHO the marketing/product synergy would be very cool.. just not sure how the two gorillas would wrestle . Dell cheers! Orlando

To: arthur pritchard who wrote (117647)	4/15/1999 10:14:00 AM
From: Kenneth Aird	Respond to of 176387

AOL probably needs a cheaper box than Dell can do now. Dell said they can't make money on a $400 box. The operating system need not be Linux, although that is a possibility. Linux can be configured to fit on a single floppy for limited applications. A while back AOL announced a strategy of "AOL everywhere" in which they would make AOL available on a range of devices from cell phones to set top boxes to PCs. Maybe they will provide a non-Intel box that only runs the AOL operating system (probably based on Java). Game machines that are faster than a 500 mhz pentium with great graphics sell for $200 retail. Apple has proven that consumers will buy a fast, stylish and colorful box that doesn't run Windows (natively at least) for $1200. Imagine if it were free. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the consumer PC is dead. IMO the home PC market will thrive on multiple PC households where a major use of PCs is work at home which requires running Office 2000 etc, not to mention laptops that migrate between home and office. Still there is a large segment of the population that will never use a PC at work, because they are too young or too old or hammer nails for a living etc. These people are signing up for AOL in droves and if AOL provides a free box to do it, so much the better. As someone pointed out recently, the more people who use the internet, the more servers and storage will be needed for all the personal web sites with family photos and eventually videos they create. Who will sell those servers and disk arrays? Will they be free? Far from it, but much less expensive from Dell than from anyone else. Ken