Thank you, Guenther. This is the kind of rumor I cross my fingers is more than idle speculation. Admitting total ignorance of any officers who work for Dell, excluding Michael Dell, getting someone in from Dell should, I expect, address the major weakness I see in CPQ's marketing strategy: a total disregard for, an apparent unawareness of the short and long term significance of targeting the higher education market--which leads me to a tad bit of letting off some steam:
Check Dell's site--places for K-12, higher education students, and faculty and staff as individuals as well as for institutional purchasing. I have only checked the 'faculty and staff' section and a few models, both desktop and notebooks, from Dell's regular lines are made available at very good prices with some freebies thrown in [i.e. free extra battery or zip drive from time to time]. These deals are actually better than the deals CPQ occasionally offers us shareholders on selected machines. Now take a look at CPQ's site. Nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. Kulu mafi. Making an assumption on my part, this is because CPQ is working under the faulty assumption that the educational and home markets are one and the same. Wrong.
If anyone has a university age child, ask him or her what kind of computers he/she sees at his/her university, not only computers owned by students but what computers are in the computer center, administrative offices, departments, faculty offices. I'll bet the answer is not, "Compaq." Putting Apple aside due to its OS, I bet the prominent names will be Dell, IBM, and **maybe** an occasional Gateway. When it comes to higher education today, Dell is crown prince and IBM, the queen's mother [just there, no complaints, people like]. The real techie types use Dells and even the purely word processing/e-mail types of students get the mind-set that Dell is great, great product [because everyone who really knows about computers says they are] and fantastic 3 year warranties, even on refurbished models [for which CPQ offers 90 days]. What do these same students buy or recommend for purchase when they graduate and move on to business, industry (or whatever)? Dell.
To own or use a Dell at many U.S. colleges and universities today is making a statement, similar to kids who had to have a pair of Air Jordan shoes. A Compaq, in particular a Compaq Presario? That's like wearing a pair of sneakers purchased at K-Mart. Out-of-it Mom and Dad might have one in their den, attached to a scanner, but hey, what do they know about cutting-edge, state of the art, great warranty products? What do they care about being cool? After all, they bought it at Circuit City.
Where I am, IBM dominates the clusters [rooms where anyone can use the computers] because IBM gives these PCs to the university. Offices upstairs in the computer center, where individuals can determine exactly what kind of computer they want? It used to be Gateway but now Dell reigns. Individual departments? Well, I only go into a few, but in the ones I have been in, departments that used to be IBMlands (mostly due to IBM university grants) are now Dellvilles.
What do people [grad students and faculty] buy for home or when away doing research? Other than a few IBM notebooks, Dell reigns with Toshiba coming in second (right now). Some people are still using their old Gateways. Compaq? Ha! Forget it.
By overlooking the education market, basically pushing it to the side or lumping the educational with the home market, CPQ is doing itself, as well as us, its shareholders, a great disservice. The Presario line, especially the notebooks in this line, is ***not*** an appealing line for people [individuals or departments] in higher education. For desktops, the Prosignia is much better and for notebooks, one of the Prosignia models as well as a few of the Armada models are far better choices. From my experience, however, people at CPQ go out of their way (when I call) to tell me I should be looking at their Presario line, not one of the lines for medium or large businesses. At one point, I was even sent a catalog of products in the Presario line so I could see that what I really, really want is available in the Presario line. Well, despite my protests that sending me the catalog would be a waste of money, I finally agreed to take a look at it. It came, I looked at it, and the woman did waste CPQ's money by sending it to me.
During the annual meeting one woman stood and made comments about CPQ not having a share of the education market from things she had heard from her (college age) son. The respone she received did not lead me to think CPQ really understands the significance of what she was saying and was ready to take the steps to address this problem. One step would be hiring someone from Dell. Another would be to hire some social scientists for short term consultancies to research the problem. If CPQ pays to hear what many of us in higher education already know, maybe they will listen.
In closing, here's just one reason why I and my colleagues in the market for notebook computers right now will not buy Presario notebooks: they do not come with international warranties. It isn't merely businesses and large corporations than want notebooks that come with 3 year, international warranties. Most academics want this kind of warranty, too.
Lynn |
