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

To: stockman_scott who wrote (127149)	5/20/1999 1:32:00 AM
From: stock bull	Respond to of 176387

Stockman Scott, re:<< Very True...Yet, look at DELL's growth y/y in servers. Its near 100% I believe. According to Montgomery Securities (in a report on Wed. AM)..."Enterprise growth, closely tied to DELL's corporate segment, grew 97% y/y, up 1700 bp from last quarter. >> I am starting to believe that the numbers are misleading. For example, if Dell sold 100 servers this year, and 500 next year, we would say that the growth was 500% yoy. That's great growth...but, really meaningless. I would be more interested in knowing the accounts that they sold too, and the accounts that they are after. In other words, what's their marketing/sales plan, and are they achieving its objectives. What do you think? Stock Bull

To: stockman_scott who wrote (127149)	5/20/1999 10:11:00 AM
From: rudedog	Respond to of 176387

Scott - The % growth in DELL's "enterprise business" is not nearly as important as their positioning against competitors in this space. CPQ, which created that segment, has huge customer loyalty in the higher end of the segment. DELL's sales have mostly been "toe in the water" at the lower end of the space. IBM and HP have been pushing down into PC servers from their high end Unix and proprietary systems, using traditional account control and long term services-led selling, which is also the model CPQ is now using. DELL can take one of two approaches here. They can hone their current model, which is to use the virtual sales force (company-specific extranets, etc.) and sell servers and storage as a tie-in to desktop sales. This approach fits their current business model but limits them to "late-cycle" sales, essentially competing on price and delivery execution. Or they can get further ahead in the cycle. CPQ, IBM and HP initially compete on the design of new systems with their consulting teams - the goal is to get an RFP which favors the company's products in some way. Then they work to get the integration and support work. Only then does the issue of whose hardware come up. DELL is not currently able to even engage on the front end pieces - so they have a built-in disadvantage. This is a different kind of "glass ceiling". If DELL decides to go into that segment, they will need to add infrastructure and fixed costs and they will become a very different company than the DELL we know today.