Dell Falling Behind HP, Acer

Dell Falling Behind HP, Acer

Despite Dell's efforts to revive itself, it continues to fall behind. HP and Acer both outpaced it in the first quarter; Dell's PC shipments in the first quarter relative to a year ago in the U.S. dropped 16.2% and 16.7% worldwide, while HP enjoyed a 2.9% increase worldwide and 12.2% in the U.S. Acer enjoyed similar growth, increasing shipments 6.8% worldwide and 13.4% in the U.S. PC shipments overall fell 7.1% relative to a year ago. The IDC reports that the PC industry results would have been a lot worse if it were not for mini-notebooks, or netbooks.

Full Story (NYTimes.com)

 

For most of the 1st quarter, all Inspiron and XPS models were still based on previous-generation (outdated) hardware- Intel GM965/PM965 chipsets with Intel GMA X3100 or nVIDIA GeForce 8x00 graphics. The entry-level business Vostro line was the same story. All other major players (HP, Toshiba, Acer, ASUS, Lenovo, et al.) ceased using these older parts six months ago!

 

well, if Dell would stop making suck hardware combinations, people would buy them more.

When I bought my Dell in 2005, it was a great combination of hardware at a solid price.

This time around (last month), my first stop was to Dell's website because of how satisfied I was with that purchase. The Studio XPS line's GPUs were too weak and max screen size was too small. The regular XPS line was too big, bulky and ugly (and had old GPUs). And the Inspiron line (of which I had bought with an excellent GPU back then) I found totally neutered in the GPU department.

I couldn't believe how weak their offerings were. Wound up going with Sony. If Dell had offered a unit with the same size screen and gpu, I would have bought the Dell without a second thought.

Good luck to them, but their competition is simply offering better hardware combinations at equivalent or better prices.

 

If you simply look at the sheer variety that HP has you'll see that it's far more diverse than Dell as well. HP has offered a consumer line Tablet PC for several years now, as far as I know Dell hasn't so much as considered such a thing.

 

Is there any wonder why they're falling behind?

Dell used to be innovators and leaders in the industry. Now, for some reason (poor planning, leadership?), they seem to be stuck in times. If they don't restructure quickly and begin to offer their customers variety and innovation soon, they will not only lose their market share, they will lose any reputation of leadership they had previously gained.

 

I wonder if nVidia offered all their last batch of 8400 and 8600, probably still defective, to Dell for free as a payment for the extra warranty cost that Dell has to take.

 

Cool, I guess.

 

Exactly...They need to be more aggressive in adopting new platforms.

 

Drop the price of the Adamo Dell that might help as well

 

Where I live,you can't buy a dell consumer 15.4" with a 16:10 screen aspect ratio and decent spec's,only 16:9 with poor 768 vertical res....which instantly put's dell out of the running with my preferred size.

The studio xps series epitomizes dell's inability to hear what customer's want imo,you just need to look left at the "most viewed laptop's" to see how unpopular the new model's are compared to the old 1330/1530 which spent month's and month's as most viewed laptop's.

They have jacked their business model price's up to obscene level's [except the US of course] and for the first time ever for me are considerably more expensive than the equivalent HP or Lenovo....all the while having some very poor build quality trait's that the previous 2 or 3 generation's didn't.

I really can't see me buying dell again [I've bought at least two a year for the last 9 years] unless they start offering model's I like [eg NOT studio xps's or 16:9 screened model's] or start offering parity with the bargain basement pricing in the US on the business model's [I pay exactly twice as much in USD] to go with some of the bargain basement quality feature's on the latest model's.

my 2 cent's

edit.I agree red dragon,the adamo line is just plain stupid,and another example of dell going off doing it's own thing without even finding out if there's a market for these overpriced underspec'd apple wannabe's,I'll be simply amazed if this line isn't a dismal failure.
I think Dell employ's too many college marketing grad's who's life experience amount's to bludging off mum and dad while watching widescreen movies all night.

 

Dell's answer seems to be more netbooks...

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translat...mini-10-optionen/&lp=de_en&btnTrUrl=Translate

 

Dell where the only computers I've ever bought. I've bought 2 Dell desktops and 1 laptop. All were great. I was looking into a XPS16 as a replacement. However, its plagued with heat and build issues. One only needs to go to the Dell forum on here to see. So I went with a HDX16 maxed out specs. Why I didn't buy a Dell this time?

1. Heat issues, like hot enough to burn through your jeans. Crappy build quality.
2. HP offers gigantic coupons like 30%, which I used to save over $900. Dell almost never offer this kind of huge savings.
3. When I compared this. You get more for your money with HP. Simple as that.

 

I can see Acer taking the #1 spot in a year. Their wide range of configurations (retail models of course) fit just about any customer, and their prices are by far the most affordable - which can't be said about the likes of HP and Dell. The only negative thing I have to say about them though is that their current designs aren't flashy enough for the style consious, though their next crop of notebooks are vastly improved in the looks department. Only a year ago their computers were plagued with poor build quality and reliability issues. What a drastic change if you don't mind me saying.

edit: One thing to add..

What I admire about the company is how they managed to improve (in every department, which includes build quality) despite the recent economic conidition. With the exception of Apple (with their overly inflated prices), the competition is lowering build quality to decrease manufacturing costs. What I find surprising is how they have the gall to ask for the same prices as their previous (better built) hardware. I mean, come on now. Don't you take us for fools or something?

 

I actually think Dell has the chance to turn this around well sometime soon

Dell should be killing HP in the desktop market in terms of price. I mean they were shipping out quad cores prebuilt for $500 range with 4GB of RAM (not as much money but Im sure some consumers realized the deal) and as stated before Dell has been doing a lot of refreshes recently. HP on the other hand dropped the customization on their dv5t, arguably one of their better laptops in terms of value.

Along with the new styles they are offering and better product lineup I think Dell has improved over the past couple months

 

I see this is as a good thing. Competition is good for the consumer, and hopefully this kick in the *** for Dell will make them realize that they need to step their game up.

 

IMO Dell and AW are on a different cycle than HP and Acer, so at the end of 2007 beginning of 2008 they were ahead of the curve and now they are behind. So HP and Acer will be picking up marketshare right now providing that consumers are basing their purchases on the component specifications. When Dell and AW refresh (prob about 4-6 months out), they will probably be ahead of the curve. From a pure business perspective I think a refresh prior to the holiday shopping season is a good thing for getting units sold. I guess we will have to see.

Now on a personal note I am pretty impressed with dell's build quality across the Studio Line, IMO it is better than the comparable HP models. As far as business lines go I think Lenovo/IBM and HP are ahead of the curve.

Again all IMO.

Cheers all

 

The Dell Studio XPS (13 and 16) are impressive. The Studio 15 and 17 models are the worst quality laptops I've seen from Dell (and I own a Studio 1535).

Business notebooks- I think Dell, Lenovo and HP all have impressive mid- and high-end offerings (Latitude/Precision, ThinkPad T/W-series, EliteBook). Dell just introduced updated versions of their entry-level Vostro models, which look pretty solid. The entry-level ThinkPad SL-series is lacking, IMO.