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

To: D.J.Smyth who wrote (129660)	5/28/1999 1:20:00 PM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Darrell - I continue to have faith in DELL's management and assume they know a lot more than I do about what needs to be done, and are taking action. But even for the strongest management team, sometimes "success" is just stemming the bleeding. If the whole of the industry shifts over into a position which says that the PC sector is a dead end, then no matter how well DELL executes in that sector, they won't get credit. We just saw that with a stellar earnings release which would have been the envy of any PC company at any time in its history - except for DELL, at this point in DELL's history. Since Dell's margins have flushed Dell with cash, the success factor feeds on itself and Dell is able to address ever increasing innovations MUCH quicker than either CPQ or HWP without experiencing abnormal debt (as CPQ did in the Digital takeover). CPQ even today has more cash and less debt than DELL. They did not add any debt to purchase DEC - it was done with cash on hand and stock. Also CPQ spends more than 10 times as much on R&D as DELL. IBM and HP spend more on R&D than CPQ. R&D and future innovation are not a part of the DELL model and should not be - the whole goal is to use other people's R&D money. I would rather see CPQ cut R&D and move more to a "fast follower" mode - it has been one of DELL's great strengths. I don't understand why you think a shift to higher R&D by DELL is either likely or would be a good thing.