Dell’s Health Improving After Employeectomy
by John Paczkowski
Posted on November 20, 2008 at 2:18 PM PT
Dell delivered its fiscal third-quarter results after market close Thursday, and they were about as exciting as the company’s industrial design. It reported a five percent drop in earnings thanks to what company officials euphemistically describe as “a challenging demand environment.” That said, Dell’s (DELL) net income was $727 million, or 37 cents a share. And that was better than the 31 cents a share the Street had been expecting. Odd, though, to see earnings-per-share like that, given such lousy revenues. Clearly, Dell’s aggressive cost-cutting measures are having a restorative effect on the company’s bottom line. Whether that will persist amid continued weak consumer and enterprise spending remains to be seen.
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Comments
The Personal computer market is pretty built out. Dell has to innovate and come up with new products and/or compete with others better in the area of personal Electonics, ala mp3 players, cell phones, portable game players, et cetera. Cost cutting works for the bottom line, but Michael will have to seize the day, and maybe go into home products, like refrigerators, microwaves, consumer every-day goods. There’s nothing wrong with industrial design, and it’s actually favored by most caffeine-centric people in the world. Don’t try to immitate Apple, in other words. Could create some kind of port replicator that organizes that entanglement of wires behind the computer, though.
Neatness is a good thing. Think some kind of port-replicator/docking station, something modular like an old car stereo pull-out. Or, even something that pulls in the computer and slides a faceplate over the computer when not in use. Out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. Computers should be unobtrusive, and should not be the center of attention, but more behind the scenes, eyes are an interface “device”. How do the eyes meet the room? How does the room meet the eyes?
Posted by Mark Light at November 20th, 2008 at 4:33 pmAs much as I (a rugged sorta guy) like modular stereo equipment I have to admit I cant tell the difference in the sound that comes out of a new modern all in one system that takes up so little space you can hang it on a wall if you want to (a kookie idea, really).
Ditto is long overdue for computers. They need to disappear, or as close to that as possible. And I mean both physically and, uh, mentally, or that is to say we should be less and less aware of them.
A company the size of Microsoft should not be able to exist on the income from vending what we need in computers today as there have been no fundamental changes in what these OSes do in more than ten years.
It is Microsoft that holds the future of companies like Dell and HP hostage. They seem to be slow figuring this out, but the ASUSes of this world are on top of it.
With capital cost and risk associated with manufacturing (even if you are farming it out) there is no excuse for MS making more money off the sale of a PC than Dell does.
The sooner everyone figures that out the better.
Posted by Mac Beach at November 20th, 2008 at 5:20 pm