LGR Tech Tales - How Dell Dominated PCs
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
James
As a 5-year postscript, it looks like after Michael Dell came back to the company, he did what he always did in tough times: he hunkered down and went back to being a big-business digital tech supplier. While Dell spent the last 5 years continuing to sell desktop and laptop units for personal use, their main focus has shifted back to selling hard to businesses and institutions (schools, hospitals, etc, including servers, thin clients and related infrastructure pieces. They largely dropped out of the printer game (which is good; Dell printers were rather awful, and they never really got into networking equipment (thanks to Cisco's chokehold on that market, at least in terms of enterprise-level networking, but other than that they do now boast a very impressive array of tech from back-end to front-end. Servers of all kinds, big monster towers for research and industrial needs, thin clients, desktops, laptops, and a pretty decent line of Windows tablets (not very big, but certainly more than suitable for most business/institutional needs.
I have to admit, while I am very suspect of many business gurus who get rich seemingly from nothing, I think Michael Dell struck the right chord here. While he obviously isn't some inventor like, say, Steve Wozniak, he DID actually find a way to streamline the process of building and selling computers in a way that keeps costs low, profits high, and delivers a reasonably stable product. He's not a technological genius, but I consider him at least a competent, savvy business executive who understands the nature of the goods and services he's selling.
Going forward, I see Dell having very serious competition from Lenovo (who have risen as a serious contender for both business and commercial sales, as well as HP (who were somewhat staggering after Dell's own resurgence, but are now starting to push back hard in all the areas Dell is doing well in.
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As a 5-year postscript, it looks like after Michael Dell came back to the company, he did what he always did in tough times: he hunkered down and went back to being a big-business digital tech supplier. While Dell spent the last 5 years continuing to sell desktop and laptop units for personal use, their main focus has shifted back to selling hard to businesses and institutions (schools, hospitals, etc, including servers, thin clients and related infrastructure pieces. They largely dropped out of the printer game (which is good; Dell printers were rather awful, and they never really got into networking equipment (thanks to Cisco's chokehold on that market, at least in terms of enterprise-level networking, but other than that they do now boast a very impressive array of tech from back-end to front-end. Servers of all kinds, big monster towers for research and industrial needs, thin clients, desktops, laptops, and a pretty decent line of Windows tablets (not very big, but certainly more than suitable for most business/institutional needs.
I have to admit, while I am very suspect of many business gurus who get rich seemingly from nothing, I think Michael Dell struck the right chord here. While he obviously isn't some inventor like, say, Steve Wozniak, he DID actually find a way to streamline the process of building and selling computers in a way that keeps costs low, profits high, and delivers a reasonably stable product. He's not a technological genius, but I consider him at least a competent, savvy business executive who understands the nature of the goods and services he's selling.
Going forward, I see Dell having very serious competition from Lenovo (who have risen as a serious contender for both business and commercial sales, as well as HP (who were somewhat staggering after Dell's own resurgence, but are now starting to push back hard in all the areas Dell is doing well in.
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CHRISMENENDEZ
I honestly don't know why Compaq was so -respected-. Their computers, at least here in Mexico, were crap: failure-prone and expensive. When HP bought Compaq and it turned out to be a fiasco, I wasn't surprised. HP's quality declined during that time and only recovered in the 2010s. Carly Fiorina surely deserved to be fired on the spot.
About Dell, they began advertising in local magazines in the late 1990s. I was always amazed of how awesome their specs were, but they didn't have local distribution and their prices were in dollars, so they were really really expensive. I always wanted one because HP, Compaq, IBM and all of them always sold computers that were already obsolete even brand new from the store, and it frustrated me that they couldn't be upgraded that much. Custom-built systems weren't really that good around here at the time, because they were made with the cheapest hardware available, so I could only dream about having a dependable and upgradeable machine.
In the early 2000s, Dell finally had local distribution in Mexico, including a local website and phone number, and their prices were finally in pesos. Their website was like porn for geeks because you could customize almost any PC with almost any kind of hardware you could imagine, and since they were operating locally, sometimes they made deals with banks and credit-card companies so you could buy the PC of your dreams easily. That's how I finally got my first -proper- gaming PC in 2003, with my first-ever graphics card (a GeForce FX 5200. I just can't go back to integrated graphics anymore. lol
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I honestly don't know why Compaq was so -respected-. Their computers, at least here in Mexico, were crap: failure-prone and expensive. When HP bought Compaq and it turned out to be a fiasco, I wasn't surprised. HP's quality declined during that time and only recovered in the 2010s. Carly Fiorina surely deserved to be fired on the spot.
About Dell, they began advertising in local magazines in the late 1990s. I was always amazed of how awesome their specs were, but they didn't have local distribution and their prices were in dollars, so they were really really expensive. I always wanted one because HP, Compaq, IBM and all of them always sold computers that were already obsolete even brand new from the store, and it frustrated me that they couldn't be upgraded that much. Custom-built systems weren't really that good around here at the time, because they were made with the cheapest hardware available, so I could only dream about having a dependable and upgradeable machine.
In the early 2000s, Dell finally had local distribution in Mexico, including a local website and phone number, and their prices were finally in pesos. Their website was like porn for geeks because you could customize almost any PC with almost any kind of hardware you could imagine, and since they were operating locally, sometimes they made deals with banks and credit-card companies so you could buy the PC of your dreams easily. That's how I finally got my first -proper- gaming PC in 2003, with my first-ever graphics card (a GeForce FX 5200. I just can't go back to integrated graphics anymore. lol
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Clinton
Dell computers in the early 2000s were s--- especially during the XP days you can play to $3, 000 for a machine using last year's parts while the Dell representative tells you that this is modern top-of-the-line Hardware my first Dell computer I seen it in a magazine and ordered one over the phone and let the on phone representative talk me through what I was looking for my response was the only thing right about the entire system that was sold to me was the the Pentium 4 processor they lied to me about it having a video card leaving misrepresented the amount of ram that the system had telling me that it had it had 512 megabytes of RAM when it only had 256 and the motherboard did not have a PCI Express slot as this was becoming the standard on motherboards in 2002-2003 and this s--- hole of a system costed me over $2, 500 I was so unhappy my parents purchased a Gateway computer for less than $1, 000 the same year with the PCI Express slot and a Pentium 4 processor in 512 megabytes of RAM less than two years later I was forced to buy another computer because of system instability causing crashes and this random annoyances ended up buying a compact with an Athlon processor and a PCI Express slot 1 gig of RAM for $500 roughly 20 months after my two and a half thousand dollars conundrum with a computer
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Dell computers in the early 2000s were s--- especially during the XP days you can play to $3, 000 for a machine using last year's parts while the Dell representative tells you that this is modern top-of-the-line Hardware my first Dell computer I seen it in a magazine and ordered one over the phone and let the on phone representative talk me through what I was looking for my response was the only thing right about the entire system that was sold to me was the the Pentium 4 processor they lied to me about it having a video card leaving misrepresented the amount of ram that the system had telling me that it had it had 512 megabytes of RAM when it only had 256 and the motherboard did not have a PCI Express slot as this was becoming the standard on motherboards in 2002-2003 and this s--- hole of a system costed me over $2, 500 I was so unhappy my parents purchased a Gateway computer for less than $1, 000 the same year with the PCI Express slot and a Pentium 4 processor in 512 megabytes of RAM less than two years later I was forced to buy another computer because of system instability causing crashes and this random annoyances ended up buying a compact with an Athlon processor and a PCI Express slot 1 gig of RAM for $500 roughly 20 months after my two and a half thousand dollars conundrum with a computer
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Captain
Not only I am a computer user, I am a computer technology fan and a fan of Dell. Hence, this is my first Dell keyboard that I should have purchased nearly twenty years ago. Dell computers are more efficient and reliable computers that perform better than the other leading brands. It took a defective computer with a dead motherboard for me to buy a Dell computer. I have called my microcomputer my keyboard because it is my powerful typewriter. My Dell Inspiron [keyboard] has lasted for 4 years with no problems. The first keyboard I had which was the Cybernet ZPC-9000 and my Dell Inspiron 5488 are all-in-one personal computers. Cybernet had the computer peripherals in the console (keyboard, and Dell had the computer inside the monitor. I miss using Microsoft Office XP Professional programs with Microsoft Windows XP Professional operating system, but I am doing fine on Microsoft Office 2019 Professional and using Microsoft Windows 10 Pro. Also, I learned more techniques for using the business productivity programs in ways that I would not be taught in a job.
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Not only I am a computer user, I am a computer technology fan and a fan of Dell. Hence, this is my first Dell keyboard that I should have purchased nearly twenty years ago. Dell computers are more efficient and reliable computers that perform better than the other leading brands. It took a defective computer with a dead motherboard for me to buy a Dell computer. I have called my microcomputer my keyboard because it is my powerful typewriter. My Dell Inspiron [keyboard] has lasted for 4 years with no problems. The first keyboard I had which was the Cybernet ZPC-9000 and my Dell Inspiron 5488 are all-in-one personal computers. Cybernet had the computer peripherals in the console (keyboard, and Dell had the computer inside the monitor. I miss using Microsoft Office XP Professional programs with Microsoft Windows XP Professional operating system, but I am doing fine on Microsoft Office 2019 Professional and using Microsoft Windows 10 Pro. Also, I learned more techniques for using the business productivity programs in ways that I would not be taught in a job.
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fanjoy
My experience with Dell has most of my life been through crappy school computers and the like. I always saw them as expensive yet uninteresting and kind of crappy computers. However when I needed a new laptop back in 2016 I suddenly realized that Dell had suddenly become very interesting, especially with their XPS laptops. Seems like this fits perfectly with Micheal Dell taking over the company a few years before. Impressive what good leadership can do to a company.
I ended up buying an expensive XPS 15. When I got it I found out that the speakers were loose. I called their support. I quickly got hold of an actual IT technician and after I explained the problem and what I had already tried to fixed it he just said -Well you have not purchased the (expensive) extra support service but since it is a brand new laptop we will send a guy to your house with spare parts to fix-. This guy ended up coming 3 times and pretty much changed all components except for the screen and chassis. All for free. THAT is excellent service!
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My experience with Dell has most of my life been through crappy school computers and the like. I always saw them as expensive yet uninteresting and kind of crappy computers. However when I needed a new laptop back in 2016 I suddenly realized that Dell had suddenly become very interesting, especially with their XPS laptops. Seems like this fits perfectly with Micheal Dell taking over the company a few years before. Impressive what good leadership can do to a company.
I ended up buying an expensive XPS 15. When I got it I found out that the speakers were loose. I called their support. I quickly got hold of an actual IT technician and after I explained the problem and what I had already tried to fixed it he just said -Well you have not purchased the (expensive) extra support service but since it is a brand new laptop we will send a guy to your house with spare parts to fix-. This guy ended up coming 3 times and pretty much changed all components except for the screen and chassis. All for free. THAT is excellent service!
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Joel
Dell absolutely dominates in the SMB (Small / Medium Business) IT market. Workstations, laptops, servers, and networking gear. They have an aggressive partnership with IT provider companies to get them to resell dell. Dell prices are relatively competitive on their own, but they give DEEP discounts to partner resellers in order to get their partners to be exclusive dell resellers to end clients. The more volume a partner like an IT company moves, the bigger of a discount the partner can qualify for. Having worked in SMB at several companies, I have seen first hand how Dell dominates. Also, at least in recent years, their build quality is unmatched, particularly with their intuitive tool-less design for desktops and servers that make them very admin friendly to work on. Poweredge servers, optiplex desktops, and latitude laptops are ubiquitous in the SMB space, and also very common in gov't and education
reply
Dell absolutely dominates in the SMB (Small / Medium Business) IT market. Workstations, laptops, servers, and networking gear. They have an aggressive partnership with IT provider companies to get them to resell dell. Dell prices are relatively competitive on their own, but they give DEEP discounts to partner resellers in order to get their partners to be exclusive dell resellers to end clients. The more volume a partner like an IT company moves, the bigger of a discount the partner can qualify for. Having worked in SMB at several companies, I have seen first hand how Dell dominates. Also, at least in recent years, their build quality is unmatched, particularly with their intuitive tool-less design for desktops and servers that make them very admin friendly to work on. Poweredge servers, optiplex desktops, and latitude laptops are ubiquitous in the SMB space, and also very common in gov't and education
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Lee
One of my mentors told me the story of the key that lead to Dell-s dominance. The key was Michael Dell making tons of relations overseas with computer part manufactures. Gaining these connections constantly on the phone, he founded PC-s Limited selling parts cheap for healthy profits which lead to him making his own computers with the hardware he was buying cheaper than anyone could get it. This was the -Dell Magic-. Just at the right place at the right time with enough money and good connections. I feel this is an accurate assessment; said mentor was working for IBM in Austin at the time running in the same social circles as Michael. Apparently Dell was notorious for late night drives in his black Acura NSX, the irony of the VMware product is awesome.
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One of my mentors told me the story of the key that lead to Dell-s dominance. The key was Michael Dell making tons of relations overseas with computer part manufactures. Gaining these connections constantly on the phone, he founded PC-s Limited selling parts cheap for healthy profits which lead to him making his own computers with the hardware he was buying cheaper than anyone could get it. This was the -Dell Magic-. Just at the right place at the right time with enough money and good connections. I feel this is an accurate assessment; said mentor was working for IBM in Austin at the time running in the same social circles as Michael. Apparently Dell was notorious for late night drives in his black Acura NSX, the irony of the VMware product is awesome.
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aceshighdueceslow
my dad bought his first Dell in, I think, 2001 and since then every computer he has purchased has been a Dell. I think I am the only one in the family that buys different computers but that's because Dell, for the money spent, doesn't give me what I need in performance.
I don't know what made my dad switch from Acer but yeah, our first PC was Acer and then from 2001 on it has been Dell, Dell, and more Dell. Actually my first laptop when I was just an undergrad was a Dell Vostro, and it served me faithfully from 2009 to 2014 before a hard drive failure took it from me
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my dad bought his first Dell in, I think, 2001 and since then every computer he has purchased has been a Dell. I think I am the only one in the family that buys different computers but that's because Dell, for the money spent, doesn't give me what I need in performance.
I don't know what made my dad switch from Acer but yeah, our first PC was Acer and then from 2001 on it has been Dell, Dell, and more Dell. Actually my first laptop when I was just an undergrad was a Dell Vostro, and it served me faithfully from 2009 to 2014 before a hard drive failure took it from me
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Gojiro7
I like that Dell never aimed for the top and tried to take over the PC market like everyone else did, most pull an Icarus and end up worse then when they started, but this tech tales is a nice showcase of the ups and downs of staying above water and how you can find a happy place within your own space without having to be better then everyone, its a mentality I wish more businesses would adopt since alot of corporate greed is part of what makes many gradually slip into being horrible places to work for.
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I like that Dell never aimed for the top and tried to take over the PC market like everyone else did, most pull an Icarus and end up worse then when they started, but this tech tales is a nice showcase of the ups and downs of staying above water and how you can find a happy place within your own space without having to be better then everyone, its a mentality I wish more businesses would adopt since alot of corporate greed is part of what makes many gradually slip into being horrible places to work for.
reply
lwvmobile
The good thing about Dell nowadays is that you can find tons of them out in the wild in fleamarkets and thrift stores without hard drives and memory for a fiver and grab up a bunch and slap an old hard drive and memory you have laying around and do whatever you want to with them. Since corporates buy them in bulk, they often donate them in bulk making it easy to have multiple of the same model to pick up around the beginning of a new fiscal year if you look in the right places. Or dumpster dive.
reply
The good thing about Dell nowadays is that you can find tons of them out in the wild in fleamarkets and thrift stores without hard drives and memory for a fiver and grab up a bunch and slap an old hard drive and memory you have laying around and do whatever you want to with them. Since corporates buy them in bulk, they often donate them in bulk making it easy to have multiple of the same model to pick up around the beginning of a new fiscal year if you look in the right places. Or dumpster dive.
reply
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