Dell’s Life After Wall Street
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Ultimately Dell & PC manufacturers have for the last 20-30 years been lucky enough to exist within a growth market. There's a requirement to innovated & such, but it's all bolstered by the fact that computing as a whole is growing. That's the reason why Dell was able to grow so fast and big early on.
cpks makes some good points about product lines and I think this is one of those places where cliche and substance can sail silently past each other. Dell's product lines are meaningless words and digits. It seems like they think of a new tablet as something that can compete in the 8" under $230 "segment." That's not just boring, it's either lazy or timid. They names are noncommittal barcodes because no one believes in this past the idea that some people might buy an 8" tablet for $230. If not, the might try a 7.5" @ $190.
Dell came to be because the process of buying parts and assembling them into a computer you can take home and plug in was fat. Small computer shops were doing it all the time. Dell did it at scale. For the time, it was a bold enough idea.Today it isn't. Dell need to figure out what Dell is for. Right now, I don't see a huge gain or loss in Dell going out of business beyond Dell employees and investors.
Lack of progress and innovation: Before Apple shipped the Retina iMac, the best laptops had the same resolution displays as the best cell phones. Typical laptops were both slower and lower resolution than phones.
Confusion: Buy a 4k display. Figure out what graphics card you need. DisplayPort, MiniDP, DVI, VGA, HDMI, versions of all of those, "dual link," maximum graphics card resolution. It's a disaster. Things don't just work. I called Dell asking what would be needed for a quad monitor 4k setup with Dell monitors and computers. They didn't know, and they didn't know who might know. Dell has Inspiron, XPS, Alienware, Latitude, and Precision as major product lines, and most of those have 3-4 sublines. What's the difference? Even Dell doesn't know (hey, Dell, did you know your reputation is set as much by your business stuff as consumer stuff? People don't differentiate). Resolution? Always labeled by weird labels like "SXGA" and "SXGA+." If you want the actual resolution, best of luck. And don't get me started on processor speed. What does i7-3500 even mean? If the config options have an 8 core with 4MB cache and 2GHz, and a quad core with 8MB cache and 2.2GHz, and one is of a different generation, I doubt even Intel knows how the speed compares. Going for the cheapest always makes sense, given how long it would take to figure it out.
Lack of choice (or nice products in general): The lines are close enough to each other that the computer you need is almost never there. The old Inspiron 8000/8100/8200, and corresponding Latitudes had interchangeable parts. You could configure to order. Today, want that high res display and a trackpoint? Can't get it. Or want that in matte (not glossy?). Tough. Want to drive multiple high-res monitors from a laptop? Boohoo. Don't like wide screen? Well, we don't like you. None of those options, individually, are big sellers, but the lack of any of them demolished the high-end computer market.
Consumer-unfriendliness: It's 2014. Why do I need to lug my power adapter with me? Couldn't we get a standard that worked with Dell, HP, IBM, and everyone else, and when I go to a conference, hotel, or family, I just plug into their adapter? Of course not. It would hurt power adapter sales. How about standard batteries where it makes sense? Even if I upgrade a Dell to a newer Dell, my batteries all go obsolete.
It's no wonder PC sales are dying. This stuff isn't rocket science, but the organizations making PCs are f-ed up enough internally they can't even get any of the basics right.
Consumers are pretty flexible: just give them a decent product and they are willing to give up some choices (evidenced by mac sales).
Instead the major determinant is how good is your last laptop - is it good enough? In the early days computers used to get better very fast - so upgrading was required. Today whatever was built 5 years ago can reasonably run most programs of today, hence less need to buy new PCs.
No, it is not.
My last "perfect for the moment" laptop was the latest G3 iBook (late 2002).
After that nothing as been "perfect" anymore. I went thought many "good" laptops but I have always found hardware glitches (NVidia card overheating), missing ports (dear Dell, where is the SD card reader?), proprietary ports (Samsung and its three proprietary ports for video out _on the same laptop_), annoying keyboard layouts, glossy and too wide screens, chargers with connectors that are produced only for six months, firmwares with weird-but-well-known bugs that will never be solved.... There is always something.
I've been an ardent PC-fanboy for decades but got the Air in 2010 (as there were no equivalent light pc notebooks).
Initially ran Windows on it - then slowly switched to OSX and won't get a Windows notebook now.
All I wanted was a $1500 laptop that could run Windows 7 and Ubuntu out of the box, had awesome resolution, and decent specs. What I found was an ocean of bullshit, and having used a MBP Retina at my previous job, I finally sighed and bought a MBP Retina off of Craigslist for $1500. I'm typing on it right now, and sure I have a desktop battlestation with overclocked i5-2500k downstairs with two 30" monitors, but this is my road warrior and I use it for writing, video editing, and light gaming. I'll never buy another PC, and just a year ago I could never see myself buying an Apple laptop. Frustrating, but the PC world has earned its place when it comes to laptops: Irrelevance.
I keep reading that the new ones are borderline.
Huh? That's HALF the reason I bought a MBP. You can't just handwave over that considering I listed it right up front.
Perhaps not, but it influences the answer to your next question:
> Instead the major determinant is how good is your last laptop - is it good enough?
The more effort it takes to buy a new computer (given that I already have one), the less likely I am to buy one. Eventually customers get to the point of need, and buy. But sales could probably be noticeably higher if the purchase experience were straight-forward. In addition to the need-based sales, there'd be want-based sales.
* Same resolution or higher * Trackpoint * Same battery life or better * Runs Linux without headaches * Reliable
There are no laptops on the market which are anywhere close to this profile. With the exception of the Retina MacBook, no high res laptops have sensible battery life. No high res laptops whatsoever have a trackpoint. All of the high res laptops, when I last looked, either had headaches for Linux support, or no information.
That's not even to talk about the nice-to-haves (quiet, drives external 4k display, swappable battery, and reasonably maintainable). On most of those, you can't even get information.
I'd love to upgrade my desktop too, which is almost as old, but figuring our processor speeds and graphics card compatibility makes it more hassle than it's worth.
> Today whatever was built 5 years ago can reasonably run most programs of today, hence less need to buy new PCs.
You're right that things built 5 years ago can reasonably run most programs of today. That's exactly why the PC industry is dying, and it is exactly a measure of stagnation and lack of progress. Today's programs and computers ought to make us more productive by having e.g. quad 4k monitors. If you sold computers like this, and they had even a 5% boost to productivity, businesses would easily drop $5k each on them. My business would buy a hundred of them, no question. Sadly, neither software nor hardware has kept up with high-res multi-monitors. These aren't hard problems to solve. My 2048x1536 15" panel is nearly a decade old. Heck, cell phones now hit 2560x1600. Microsoft wouldn't move without the hardware vendors, and vica-versa. Everyone was waiting for someone else to move, no one did, and now, they're all dying.
It is a good marketing tactic for something people perceive to be complex and difficult, and while they are absolutely as guilty as the pc manufacturers for making non-standard parts (and more guilty than mobile imo), I could still connect magsafe adapters to any laptop that accepted them with no problem, plenty of pc manufacturers cant promise that even in their own lines, once a model changes the adapters often change as well.
Except that the MagSafe 2 came out and screwed that up.
Apple makes an adapter but it only goes one way. So if a friend comes over with their 2012 MacBook Pro and doesn't bring their charger, they're screwed. They can't use the charger to my 2012 Air.
1. Go to http://www.dell.co.uk/. For Home or For Work? Choose For Home, I guess.
2. Click on the For Home link but it doesn't open a new page for some reason. Here's where my mum would give up on it. Eventually manage to get to the For Home website by right-clicking and choosing "open link in new tab".
3. Here's the For Home homepage http://i.imgur.com/aiuN5Gq.png Click on Laptops and Ultrabooks
4. The usual overwhelming and terribly designed "choose a laptop" page. http://i.imgur.com/WRZU5pT.png with vague descriptions like
Inspiron: For home and home office (didn't I chose home not work?)
Stay connected with computing that’s easy and inspiring. With this versatile family of laptops, you can count on Inspiron to deliver exactly what you need.
XPS: For the ultimate experience
XPS delivers the ultimate experience with the highest resolution displays, exceptional build quality, unique materials and powerful features.
Alienware: For high-performance gaming
Fuel the epic win and enjoy the most immersive PC gaming experience anywhere. Choose from ultra-powerful notebooks powered by high-end technology.
For the record, I bought and returned a Galago Ultra Pro from System76, and was grossly disappointed by the keyboard and build quality. I'd like to support the small guys, but it seems the manufacturers of their laptop hardware (Clevo, etc.) haven't put out a decent ultrabook yet.
What's nice about the Ultra Pro is that I can easily use two extra monitors on it, I just had to plug them in. I was kind of worried that it would be like OSX where you can't use more than two or the main display cuts out, but nope, I have three displays on this and it's awesome.
If you really want Apple-like build quality on a Linux laptop, what I would do is just install Ubuntu on a Macbook. You want a company to do all the work for you but there's not enough of a market for that yet to support a company that does everything Apple does only with Linux. I'm happy with my System76 purchase, and hopefully the quality will go up in the future so that I can continue being a System76 customer.
I support app developers as part of my job, and debugging Android apps is generally an easier experience. "Send me an APK" is a lot easier than "here's my device id, make an ad hoc build, oh wait I want to use another device too, oh I hope you're under 100 provisioned devices! Maybe we should just use Testflight, oh ok Hockeyapp. Wait, you don't have an account?" etc. etc. In addition to this, it's nice to be able to install software and give the author 100% of the money I pay for it, not 70%. My wife has an iPad (won it in a raffle) and it's an awesome device, but I wouldn't dream of buying one myself so long as I can't use it with Humble Bundle games or other app stores in general.
There's a reason for that. Getting software onto an iOS device other than downloading it from the App Store is really difficult, and that goes for viruses too. Put that together with the fact that you need to provide apple with authenticated identity to get things into the App Store, and you end up with quite a secure platform
Sure, that security comes with some restrictions. For you that might not be the right choice, but for many people it absolutely is. The Mac provides a platform somewhere in between the two. You can load software from unapproved places, but the system warns you. I think this is a reasonable trade off. Most people do need to be made aware that such actions are risky. They may decide not to load that software after all, and that's a good thing! If you're unsure of the risks involved with loading a piece of software, then you probably shouldn't be loading it.
Finally your point about loading test versions of software on iOS is out of date. This is one of the many major improvements Apple delivered for developers at this years WWDC. The procedure is much more streamlined than previously. At this point it's debatable whether it's easier to manage testers using ad-hoc APKs on android, or using Apple's test deployment system.
I felt this precise pain last night. A burglar took all my computers yesterday. Luckily, a friend of mine is coming for a visit and offered to bring replacements for us from the US. I went to Dell for a simple, no frills, Linux-friendly, inexpensive laptop.
There seems to be no such thing.
The only machines that came with Linux were more expensive than similar Macbooks. There are cheap and light Windows boxes, but their friendliness is unknown and, with the current drive for touchscreens enverywhere, I am anything but sure about which one will run smoothly.
I went with Dell because they can support whatever I buy here. Going with a supplier that has no local presence this side of a national border is not a good option.
Some years back a slide made it online that supposedly showed the kind of discounts Dell and others got from MS.
I think the prices were down to 1/10 of retail for both Windows and Office combined.
Then on top of that they get all kinds of payments for bundling Symantec 30 day packages etc.
At the tail end of the Netbook craze, Dell managed to release 3 models. 2 Windows and 1 Ubuntu Linux.
Crazy thing was that you could get a $100 rebate on the Windows models. And if you tried to up-spec the Ubuntu model it would cost slightly more than the top end Windows model even before rebate.
The unit margins are razor thin, and Linux do not provide the economic alternatives that Windows does right now.
OEM price for Windows for a top 10 vendor was about $45, with the US Justice Department forbidding Microsoft from doing special deals. I don't know what's happened since the 10-year supervision was lifted.
The netbook price was around $11-$15 for "Windows XP Home for Ultra Low Cost PCs" edition, but with heavy limitations on the hardware spec needed to qualify for that price. Since the netbook OEMs charged third parties for bundling software, they could make a decent profit on the OS.
The last Dell I bought came with Linux preinstalled. I would be happy to pay a little more for a Linux-certified machine, but, unfortunately, the only ones they offer are worse values than their Apple counterparts.
> (sans Apple)
Oh, is it like the mobile world is SO, SO MUCH better? Like Apple-only accessories? Apple-only cables (with specific, non standard ports)? How about changing the battery on the shiny MacBook? Well no luck, you have to bring it back to the Apple Store. That's unfriendliness to me.
I like it when people pay a grey picture of the PC world while Apple is all shiny on the other side, while having exactly the same practices or even worse.
The points you bring up are rather suspect:
1. Besides the Lightning port, which was arguably created because dual-sidedness is a unique feature no standard has, what port is non-standard? MagSafe I guess - but it is pretty much standardized across their laptop lines and I still have a power supply from 2007 that work with my 2013 laptop using a $5 MagSafe 2 adapter.
2. How often would one take a laptop in for a new battery? It's a once in every 4 year event, at best. Pretty much never unless they bought it used.
I think there may be drastically different understanding of what customer friendliness is. At least with Apple I can talk to someone to fix my problem at the local mall, or have Apple support call me almost immediately with a specialist via their website -- as opposed to waiting on hold to talk to someone that knows nothing, only to be placed in another queue.
Er, I have a MBP, but I buy exclusively used laptops. This isn't something to handwave. Many people do this. New prices are insane.
Apple lock-in is horrendous and nobody wants to be tied to a single provider for all their hardware.
Some businesses do use Apple products (typing on mine right now) but the biggest reason most don't is their lock in to the Microsoft ecosystems. Most of them use Active Directory and have corporate standards that make them use Microsoft because their IT teams require it.
You may wish to update your assumptions. That was a relatively viable statement to make in 2012. In 2014 -- with businesses like Google going effectively Apple-only -- it's not.
Most of what Google do involve the web. And most web design (note the design part) courses puts a focus on Apple products. This in part because they grew out of print media courses etc.
Note, look at how many startups and techies use macs as primary dev machines - most people in the tech "scene" seem to. Popularity and bandwagons have some level of merit.
This is for a Fortune-500 company.
Traditional businesses have a Windows legacy to deal with, but that hasn't stopped the vast majority from adopting iOS in droves.
iTunes begs to differ... it was always total PITA to use.
I want a 15" laptop with Linux support, > 4 cores, 16 GB RAM, CD drive, no touchscreen, Thunderbolt-y video out, 2-3 USB ports, 250GB platter w/ SSD cache. Probably a few other ambient things I take for granted.
I really don't want to see 6 different models all roughly the same, but slightly different.
If you look into how Apple and Amazon is coping while being public, you'll see that in both of those companies, the CEOs actually have very good deals with shareholders that allow them to reject short-term stock market greed and lets them focus on long-term goals.
The ultimate goal of a private company should not be going public - this is a false dychotomy created in part by Wall Street. Growth, innovation and long-term survival (meaning average positive cash flow over many years) should be that ultimate goal.
Wouldn't touch their consumer level "Home" product line, nor would many here on HN I asssume, given that programmers and designers abound (who typically need/want quality hardware).
If expanding outside of their niche helps Dell survive/thrive for years to come, I'm all for it, just keep the business products alive and well, we needs them ;-)
But as another commenter pointed out, you're wrong about what actually happened with Dell recently.
Dell might like to offer OS X on laptops but Apple won't allow it, even if Dell buys its OS at retail.
> offer more configuration options again
Dell offered a load of options when it built desktops in its own factories. Most laptops (including Macs) are built in huge factories in China owned by Foxconn (Hon Hai), Quanta, Compal, Wistron, Pegatron etc, so configuration is generally not an option. (Or not at a price people are willing to pay.)
Well it's no surprise since the configuration options were extremely limited. Also the available specs were really crappy. There wasn't an XPS or Alienware option.
> so configuration is generally not an option. (Or not at a price people are willing to pay.)
Well then what differentiates Dell from anyone else?