Understanding Dell: Pragmatism Beats Revolution
from the focused-on-the-right-things dept
I no longer buy Dell computers after the absolutely horrific customer service experience I had with them in 2000 (that involved a brand new broken laptop which they alternately insulted me about and then lied to me about fixing). However, I do respect what they've done as a business, outside of their customer service department. News.com is running a great interview with Michael Dell where he explains how they innovate. Clearly, it's a press interview, and so he's trying to get specific things across, but he says all the right things, and basically explains how they've taken what is essentially a commodity for every other company in their market and turned it into a hugely profitable business. While other companies try to innovate on new products, Dell's R&D efforts are focused on making the process better. They're taking standard components and making it so they can sell them to customers at a cheaper price. Their goal, according to Dell, needs to be to build products that consumers want - and not come up with products that are better for Dell to sell. They figure if they're selling the right products, while innovating the process they can remain profitable. So far, it's working. In the interview he trashes HP, Sun and IBM for their focus on utility computing as the exact opposite of that goal. He suggests those moves are more about forcing customers into a locked-in solution that offers them no real benefit.
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Dell is a leach
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Pragmatism vs. Revolution
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here's what I care about...
Second instance: a drive in one of my arrays fails. Call dell and within 1 day a replacment arrives.
In an area where ComHPac or IBM support is completely non-existant, that is what makes or breaks our decision to do business with Dell.
I hate their customer support line as well and I routinely spend 40 minutes on hold and hang up 50% of the time out of frustation; however, I have learned what times to call in order to get their "follow the sun" support calls to land in Texas. As far as I am concerned, their Indian support staff is wacked and on-drugs. Occassionally you run into the good Indian tech guy, but more often than not, I get lied to about on-site support availability, get told that there is no problem or whatever hangs up the call in 2 minutes or less.
I also like the fact that they tend to go where others wouldn't, witness the Axim, PowerConnect switches, Veo Web Cams, etc. Where is HP or IBM when it comes to channeling best of a breed equipment to the consumer? With HP/IBM if it's not invented by them, then it shouldn't get sold to the customer.
Yeah, sure, they're just a middle man between you microsoft and the Tiawanees PC manufactuer, but they tie it all together and usually at the lowest cost with the highest value support options.
...and that's why their revenue is up 20%. The market is always right, in one way or another.
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Re: here's what I care about...
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