back to article Dell falls hard on 'soft' sales

Dell shares fell 8.3 per cent in early Wall Street trading today after the firm warned investors that it would see a “further softening” in computer sales this quarter. The vendor said in a short – though not sweet – statement that following on from its sobering Q2 fiscal results last month that Dell “is seeing further …

COMMENTS

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  1. Nick Davey
    Pirate

    I'm not surprised

    our company has been dealing with Dell for years, however, over the past 6 months I have been completely unable to get a quote for kit from them...... they surely are in the shadow of HP as that is where we are looking to go as Dell clearly don't want the business.

  2. Mark
    Thumb Down

    lower cost producers

    Recent experience with Dell laptops suggest the construction is flimsy already so going with "lower cost producers" is not to be recommended!

    This was a reason for me to buy an HP one instead, which feels much more solid. If Dell want to compete with HP they should up their build quality, IMHO

  3. Webster Phreaky
    Jobs Horns

    Dell falls hard!?? How About Apple! DOWN $50 SINCE MAY '08!

    Hey sports, THAT'S 27%!! If the "claimed" Apple sales of Macs, iPuds and POS "smart" iPhony were so great, why is it that AAPL is being so REJECTED by the Wall Street insider investors??

    Because all the sales claims and market gains are bullshit.

    Ps - HP is UP +1.46%! While as of today, AAPL from a high of 190 to 136.54 -3.82 -2.72%

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Build Quality...

    I'm always confused when people complain about Dell's build quality. All the machines we've had on the whole are always well put together. Testing however is a different kettle of fish...Half the time we end up with kit that doesn't work properly for 3 months while they get a bios update out.

    HP's kit on the other hand is over priced, awful quality, but on the whole does seem to work out the box.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Turning away business

    I rather urgently needed to buy a new XP Pro laptop for pretty much immediate use; I wanted to buy from Dell but they are so pro-Vista they effectively turned me away.

    For example the USA Dell website has something like "You spoke, we listened" and make it (relatively) easy to buy an XP machine, whereas the UK Dell website when offering info/choice between XP and Vista just relentlessly go on about how great Vista is, and hides XP purchase in the business choices, and adds something like £60 for the privilege of having XP rather than Vista, with a bit of extra delay thrown in for good measure.

    My choices boiled down to Toshiba or Lenovo.

  6. Ian Davies
    Stop

    @Webster

    Webster, your dickishness knows no bounds.

  7. Glenn Charles
    Happy

    XP still available

    Tiger Direct, OEM. They also have great starter kits. I might add that OS in general is less.

    --Glenn

    @Ian Davies: sounds like you're complimenting him...oops. That's right. We weren't talking about enlargement.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Translation

    "The firm’s boss Michael Dell recently sought to reassure investors by vowing to save $3bn in annual costs by cutting back on staff and shifting to lower cost producers." really means "to hell with a quality product, average or even less than average will suffice. Oh, and in terms of personnel, we'll just fire all of the talented help and replace them with anybody with a pulse." I'm going to meander a bit and assume that Michael Dell is going to be blazing new trails into the Amazon, in search of unknown tribes of natives, who might be willing to work for grubs, a couple gross of berries and the occasional dell t-shirt, and ditch India, all together, because it's one of the few places where the locals haven't fully embraced the global economy yet, and can be easily exploited for a few years.

  9. Webster Phreaky
    Jobs Horns

    @Ian Davies

    Ian Davies, your dumbfuckiness is immeasurable. Apple Kool Aid Drinker .... FACTS are immaterial.

  10. biomister
    Boffin

    Tech fall

    Dell losing value = market correction

    Apple losing value = good time to buy AAPL

    The difference? One has an expanding market presence and a diversified future. The other is Dell.

  11. Ian Davies
    Stop

    ahh... Kool Aid...

    ... the last refuge of the retard and his straw-man argument... how clever of you to conflate share price and sales figures as though they represent the same thing... how ingenious to pretend that Apple could somehow fake their market share, as though they go out and count the sales themselves, rather than a dedicated market intelligence firm like... ooh, I don't know... IDC?

    Go back to bed, you tool.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't me short-minded

    Webster, keep in mind stock prices in the short term are sometimes more indicative of macroeconomic trends than individual company performance. Apple has great products, and sets impressive sales records each year. Dell, on the other hand, is getting hammered because their business has been slow to adapt to the new rules of the marketplace. And if you're an investor in AAPL, you probably don't notice that 27% dip when you've earned a 1143% return over the past five years. And if you're not holding stocks for the long-term, I can't help you.

    http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=0&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Logarithmic&chdeh=1&chdet=1221613284639&chddm=494615&cmpto=NASDAQ:AAPL;INDEXSP:.INX;NASDAQ:GOOG&cmptzos=-18000;-18000;-18000&q=NASDAQ:DELL&ntsp=0

    (Graph of 5-year view of DELL vs. AAPL vs. GOOG vs S&P500)

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ dumbfuck Webster

    events of the last months and year pretty much illustrate that Wall Street has about as much of a clue about anything as you do

  14. Robert E A Harvey
    Gates Horns

    "Turning away business"

    I agree with all that about the UK site.

    I still think that dell's refusal to offer the linux versions as a pull-down on the main page for the laptop stinks. Even if the "recommend microsoft vista" they should be offering the alternative.

    I would have bought two Dells this year had the cost of the linux version not come out more expensive than the equivalent windows one by the time the specifications are aligned.

  15. Cormie

    @ bws

    You have no idea how close you are to the truth there mate...

  16. paul
    Go

    adapt

    Im not sure whats happening with the enterprise world , but for home consumers dell is under a lot of pressure. These computers are falling in price all the time, and with the arrival of the linux mini laptops pressure is on even more. My eee PC cost £160 , there just isn't much profit in something that costs so much less.

    Personally however, I did get work to buy me a new ubuntu dell machine. Its very very nice. When the market does switch to linux, maybe dell can recover. HP dont sell /support that much in the way of desktop linux which will bite them in the arse one day.

    (I said when not if, with the expectation the onslaught of ms and apple fans - unless you start giving away your OS , it is simply a matter of when).

  17. Webster Phreaky
    Jobs Horns

    AAPL 127.83 -12.05 -8.61% Wednesday ...

    Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha Apple TANKS worse than ANY other Silicon Valley Tard company!

    Hey Apple Kool Aid Drinkers ..... how's YOUR AAPL Portfolio you paid $185 per share at ????

    Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha .......... Wall Street KNOWS your Apple products are "gadgets".

  18. Ian Davies
    Thumb Up

    Medication...

    ...urgently required for the terminally gormless Mr Phreaky, I feel.

    You still haven't explained how Apple' stock dropping (like every other tech stock) when their market share is increasing, is somehow the same as Dell's share price dropping because their market share is being eaten away. Go on, have a punt. It's a slow afternoon, and I could do with the amusement of watching a dumb animal getting tied up in their lack of understanding of their own argument.

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