Buy Dell when the doubletalk ends

Last night I was thinking about this post and my response. Dell’s Simplify IT initiative isn’t a question about old systems vs. new systems. There will always be a mix of old and new in IT environments. It is more about building IT on industry standards vs. proprietary architecture. We will work to make our new systems easier to deploy and manage, but that’s only a part of the idea behind Simplify IT.

I read with great interest the blog reactions to Dell’s “Simplify IT” initiatives. As for the author’s comment about Dell acting like a startup, I personally think this is a great idea. Any company that has grown as much as we have can get crushed under its own weight, so the fact that Dell is refusing to be crushed and ‘acting like a startup’ again is a great sign. Comments about our initiatives to simplify IT are expected. Let’s face it, IT is too complex and as the strategy of scale out on simple x86 servers was proven over the past few years as a viable model (Dell’s idea), it created other issues that Dell has been solving. As one of the many working at the company on Simplify IT initiatives, it is clear to me that simplification is a journey, not some predetermined set of plans. Simplification will include thoughts, new ideas, initiatives, plans, alliances, and most importantly, participation from those who use IT on a daily basis. This is a ‘moon shot’ kind of coal, but one that deserves all our attention. IT simplification can only be accomplished through standardization, consolidation and automation, which are the core building blocks of everything Dell is and has contributed to simplification.
Today, as the industry has made IT more and more complex, Dell is taking a stand against complexity. We believe the most important thing we can do is to simplify IT by stripping out cost and complexity in every way, every day. We’re creating new tools and best practices to ensure every customer drives business forward instead of just “keeping the light on.” Our customers have told us how important this is to them and so it will continue to be our primary focus. We think it’s the best way that we can drive value for our customers. For more information on this, see my post at: http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/11/23/35379.aspx.

Do not compare Apple to Orange (Dell). I work in the Round Rock campus and can guarantee that the ‘King’ is on its way out. The company does not have any procedures, lots of ambiguty and employee satisfaction is at its nadir. What else would you expect when a company is laying off employees left, right and center w/out any notice or respect.

I am amazed about how lightly so-called analysts allow themselves to criticize entrepreneurs who have done so many achievements. I would be interested to know what are the qualifications of the author and his/her achievements compared to what Mr. Dell has built.
Posted By Daniel, Montreal, Quebec : November 30, 2007 3:05 pm
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I’ll grant you Michael Dell built a good business, but he allowed, by retiring temporarily, his efforts to go down the drain.

Dell went from a constructing well made machine at a reasonable price to building piles of junk that any weekend hack could assemble out of cheap parts for one quarter the cost and end up with greater dependability.

I purchased 2 computers (one for me and one for my daughter) from Dell 4 years ago and I assure you, I’ll not patronize them again.

If it weren’t for cutting deals to accomplish their corporate sales, Dell would probably have gone out of business by now.

People I know who bought Dell say they’ll never again buy Dell because of the pitiful (useless in substance and almost unintelligible English of those who answer the phone) customer service and the low build quality of the machines.

The analysts are right on in their assessment.

Dell’s customer service is actually not that bad, at least for businesses. Having dealt with HP and Dell, I would never want to deal with HP for anything but printers, and if they continue to degrade the quality there as they have been, I’ll be recommending stopping buying those as well soon. 2 to 3 WEEKS to get any warranty replacement from HP vs. 1 to 2 days from Dell is all the evidence I need of which company I want to do business with.

I have gr8 experience with DELL Customer service. The customer service reps are very patient and when I need a replacement AC adapter I got it within 2 days. When I have Microphone driver trouble, fixed immediately using their remote connective tool, via internet. Awesome customer service!!!

There are two missing core corporate values that are missing from Dell.

1) Respect for people: be it their employees, vendors, customers, the Dell culture is to treat others like garbage, because that is how the management treats them — straigt from the top. Garbage in, garbage out. Everyone is treated like a metric, not a sentient being. failures are punished, instead of learning lessons from mistakes. In that sense, Dell has an opportunity to realize how much human capital is has at its disposal. But since Mr. Big does not know how to value human capital, or appears to recognize the business value in doing so, this is a long shot.

2)Rediscover true innovation: Dell has never been a technology company that innovated something entirely new. Dell has been an assembler of standard hw and sw components. That story leads to a downward value spiral, without end.

Since neither 1) nor 2) are likely, you will never see Dell innovating something truly unique, for example a tiny supercomputer, or a new peripheral interface.

Another strategy is for Dell to swallow its suppliers and apply their amazing time to market operations. But this is very risky and capital intensive.

Dell customer service is the worst I’ve ever experienced. I just bought 2 HP laptops for my kids and they love them. THE KING IS DEAD…….LONG LIVE THE KING

if India is so nice, why are you in the US

I worked at the corporate office in Round Rock and believe me they have lots of problems investors need to know about. Employee’s are treated like @#!#, moral is bad, top managers are out of touch with Reality and customers are not receiving any service that is worth mentioning. They are basicllly the Walmart of the computer world..

iMac is good, but unfortunatly my company won’t efford iMac for all employes that is where the market is for Dell or HP

I was on the analyst call. I agree I their CFO could have done a better job of clarifying thier position and direction. Long term I think Dell will figure it out. As a ong term investor I think $24 is great price to buy this stock at!

Way to go, Dell: Simple & Cheap!

I am amazed about how lightly so-called analysts allow themselves to criticize entrepreneurs who have done so many achievements. I would be interested to know what are the qualifications of the author and his/her achievements compared to what Mr. Dell has built.

Frankly, I think that as more people actually figure out that they don’t have to buy a Dell or HP to run Windows and the greatest operating system one the planet (OSX), these guys are bound to take a big hit. HP will survive with printers and ink but Dell?

I have used Dell for my business but as of now, it’s all iMacs and Powerbooks. Why would I want to buy a Dell when I can have a beautiful iMac on my desk?

Apple is moving up and Dell is going down. It’s inevitable in my opinion.

Maybe he should break up the company and give the investors their money back? At least that way the investors could buy Apple stock.

Interesting perspective… It’s always useful to compare Dell to Apple (concentrating on computers only here). Apple has many fewer lines/brands of products. Apple uses better quality hardware components, and in general has a much higher overall hardware reliability (determined empirically by watching how many Dells on my team broke while my PowerBooks ‘took a licking and kept on ticking’.) Apple’s tech support also gets high marks (I’ve had generally good experiences with it.) And that’s before we start talking about the SW, which of course really isn’t Dell’s fault… Dell used to produce really rock-solid machines with good performance at a competitive price. By trying to play the ‘price wars’, they’ve lost track of what originally made Dell unique, the -value- proposition.

Michael Dell should take a hard look at what Steve Jobs did when he returned to Apple. That’s an example of (a) simplicity and (b) effective CEO-level leadership.

dave