Michael Dell Returns to CEO Role at Dell

head_dunce writes "It looks like Michael Dell is jumping back into the big chair at Dell because his company is slipping under the direction of Kevin Rollins. I wonder if they should be looking outside the company for new ideas, or if going back to basics is what needs to be done?"

Re:Quid Pro Quo?

[TooMuchToDo]

Wal-mart plays hardball with suppliers (I've worked with them personally), but it understands it's place, just as the supplier knows theirs.

Dell outright butchers suppliers. There is indeed a difference. I suggest looking up both "symbiotic" and "parasitic" on Wikipedia.

Re:Improve Customer Support

[ulysees]

Am I the only one who finds Dell support better than other vendors ?

I've actually migrated large accounts from HP, IBM & Fujitsu to Dell because of the lack of support from those vendors.
I know it is different for individual users but for large businesses all of my support is provided by native English speakers in the same country as me. On rare occasions you will get an engineer that is 'lacking' but most of the time it's someone who can understand what you are saying and will either identify the problem or book the service call if you've already done the technical troubleshooting.

Am I the only customer with this experience ???

Re:One change in direction that wouldn't go amiss

[the_womble]

1) Dells gets paid for placing the bloatware: it keeps the price down and boosts their margins.
2) Lots of people ARE gibbering idiots.
3) Many people have low expectations of PCs
4) They are quite likely to blame software problems on MS anyway.
5) Corporate buyers will do a clean re-install anyway.
6) Home users will probably have the machine just as bloated with malware in a week anyway. The is the reason for 3 above.

Re:Quid Pro Quo?

[Heembo]

Yea, there is a better way. Take a look at Cosco. They demand that you as a supplier play by a few bulk rules, but otherwise I was SHOCKED to see them pay a very fair price for goods, not to mention they take care of their employees reasonably well; much better than the likes of WalMart. Research Cosco's and others business practices, there is a better way.

Inaccurate

[nevesis]

Interesting post.. but it seems inaccurate to me.

For example, Dell has been using motherboards manufactured under the Intel brand name by Foxconn since as far back as I can remember. They've been using Lite-On optical drives, and various power supplies -- often HiPro. All of these companies are still in business and doing quite well (better than Dell even).

I do think that Dell shot themselves in the foot, however in an entirely different matter. Dell started the PC price wars. The competition followed their aggressive pricing, and now the budget PC market (which Dell had cornered) is littered with companies barely surviving on razor thin margins.

Dell attempted to correct themselves: they purchased Alienware, they have put more focus on their higher end models, but frankly, I don't think they'll ever recover unless they re-brand themselves much as Apple has.

Re:Improve Customer Support

[forgotten_my_nick]

> The first priority of Michael Dell should be to
> improve Dell's lousy customer service

Agreed! All my dealings with Dell this is the single point where I have always had negative dealings with Dell.

> and in-source it to US again.

That may not always make it better. The problem with Dells support isn't that it is in India. It is that for the home users we get a "call center" rather then a "technical support center". There is a huge difference. Call Centers hire the lowest common denominator thats skills require reading check boxes off a screen.

Technical support on the other hand is different. You are dealing with a person who understands the issue you are explaining. They know to cut through the check boxes and work on the core area.

> Corporates love Dell because of its uniform ugly black boxen.

You haven't bought a dell in a while have you. :)

Re:Too cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely wrong. Dell's largest customer base is enterprises and government. The consumer buying is a much smaller percentage of all Dell's sales.

Re:Quid Pro Quo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your problem is that your CTO is a tool. We get crazy good pricing from Dell (way way way below their advertised prices). You need to bring in the other vendors every couple of years to "reevaluated your current hardware platforms". This is especially effective when you're getting ready to make a very large purchase. Then you bring in Dell, HP and IBM so they beat each other up on price.

Hopefully whoever you're using now (Dell in your case) will come close enough to the other's pricing so you don't have to switch hardware platforms. If not, meh... If the cheapest guy's hardware and support looks decent, just use them instead.

Re:Quid Pro Quo?

[operagost]

It is official; Netcraft confirms: Dell is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Dell community when IDC confirmed that Dell market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Dell has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Dell is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Dell's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Dell faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Dell because Dell is dying. Things are looking very bad for Dell. As many of us are already aware, Dell continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Poweredge is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Poweredge developers Benjamin Curtis and Mary Stein only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Dell is dying.