Dell Earnings Down 54 Percent
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 20th Nov 2009 21:44 UTC
Hardware, Embedded Systems "Dell reported its third-quarter earnings results Thursday, showing a small improvement over the last quarter, but revenue was down 15 percent over the last year, and profits fell 54 percent. The company reported revenue of $12.9 billion, within analysts' expectations between $12.8 billion and $13.5 billion. Earnings were 17 cents per share, when excluding 6 cents of pretax expenses and amortization. That's 54 percent off the 37 cents Dell recorded a year ago. Besides its acquisition of Perot Systems last month, there weren't too many positive signs in the recently completed quarter. Shipments were also down 5 percent across its businesses."
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RE[3]: given the economy ...
by kaiwai on Sun 22nd Nov 2009 09:05 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: given the economy ..."
kaiwai
Member since:
2005-07-06

It was their game to cost cut until their competition hurt. They just didn't realise that it would hurt them in the end.

It's a lot better than it could have been. If the company had continued its direction from two years ago, they'd have really been in trouble.


When price is the only differentiator, what does one expect? why purchase a Dell? They're just another wintel vendor - nothing to differentiates their products over another apart from a superficial outer layer. Every time I see it happen it further re-enforces the fact that Dell need to allocate $2billion and develop a whole software ecosystem (operating system and middleware) around their hardware which allows them to maintain margins and differentiate the product outside simple price and superficial appearance.

It won't happen because Michael Dell have made it 100% clear they are a 0 R&D company, they're merely the OEM outlet store for Microsoft - which makes me wonder why they just don't stop the charade and merge with Microsoft - decisions being made by Michael Dell simply for the benefit of Microsoft and not for Dell's shareholders.

Edited 2009-11-22 09:06 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 1

RE[4]: given the economy ...
by flanque on Sun 22nd Nov 2009 10:29 in reply to "RE[3]: given the economy ..."
flanque Member since:
2005-12-15

it further re-enforces the fact that Dell need to allocate $2billion and develop a whole software ecosystem (operating system and middleware) around their hardware

What exactly are you expecting from them? What could they possibly offer that isn't already available? If you mean, Linux, then they would have done this long ago if it was purposeful.

It's not as though they haven't had diversification disussions in the past.

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[4]: given the economy ...
by cerbie on Sun 22nd Nov 2009 10:52 in reply to "RE[3]: given the economy ..."
cerbie Member since:
2006-01-02

If I look at notebook and desktops, I tend to see more balanced configurations at decent prices from HP than from Dell. I build, but I have recommended specific HPs in the recent past, because they were far better for what someone wanted, for hundreds less than Dell. Recent HP's I've worked on have all been nice PCs (despite a lawsuit forming over HP corporate idiocy, right now *sigh*). I mean, if a poor CPU, or poor video card (or worse, a choice of crap or high-end, with no middle), or less RAM (as in way too expensive), etc., is needed to keep the price and profits good, screw 'em. It's a commodity.

HP has been eating into their market share because they have been getting those little things right, from end users walking into Sam's or Best Buy, to big companies doing their regular roll-outs. If Dell tries to go ever cheaper, they will get into Acer's home turf: the craptastic computer that is a few bucks cheaper than everyone else's, on average. Do they really want to go there?

Remember the days when they used Intel and Asus mobos, Delta PSUs, and Palo Alto ABS-covered will-survive-a-nuclear-blast cases? Ah, them was the days...

Edited 2009-11-22 11:03 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 3

RE[5]: given the economy ...
by Vlad on Sun 22nd Nov 2009 20:16 in reply to "RE[4]: given the economy ..."
Vlad Member since:
2006-03-23

I agree their previous consumer level cases were better than their current "hip and modern" line up. I've always like their small/med business and enterprise equipment though; the precision series of workstations is quite nice.

They've cut costs on the motherboards though, and it shows. Their prices for upgrade equipment (RAM, hard drives, etc) are also simply insane. Why would I spent 150 to upgrade to a 1TB hard drive when I can keep the default and buy one off the shelf for under $100?

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[4]: given the economy ...
by bousozoku on Sun 22nd Nov 2009 21:42 in reply to "RE[3]: given the economy ..."
bousozoku Member since:
2006-01-23


...
It won't happen because Michael Dell have made it 100% clear they are a 0 R&D company, they're merely the OEM outlet store for Microsoft - which makes me wonder why they just don't stop the charade and merge with Microsoft - decisions being made by Michael Dell simply for the benefit of Microsoft and not for Dell's shareholders.


They had been doing some R&D to cheapen their motherboards but this backfired also and their reliability is horrible.

I remember an incident where the company where I was working replaced their Gateway 2000 (that old!) machines with Dell machines. For every 5 machines, we returned 3 as dead-on-arrival or dead within 2 weeks. Selling such machines to a company of 50,000 employees made a point about how much they cared.

Reply Parent Score: 2