Dell are serious, they have to make this work or find another way to stay in business

Dell are serious, they have to make this work or find another way to stay in business

Posted May 2, 2007 5:48 UTC (Wed) by Cato (subscriber, #7643)
In reply to: Dell are serious, they have to make this work or find another way to stay in business by gdt
Parent article: Dude, you're getting Ubuntu (Linux.com)

Very good points. There's also an interesting transition from desktops to notebooks going on for the PC industry and Dell:

* The share of notebooks sold increases every year

* Notebooks are less suitable for Dell's build-to-order model in which the customer selects exactly which components should be included

* Build-to-order is essential to the way Dell has always sold direct - without that, you need to build based on market predictions and ship these to the channel (retail shops)

* Having more software-based options for notebook customisation helps Dell provide "software build-to-order" for and still sell direct, as you mentioned

* Pre-installed Linux, if it's done right and it sells reasonably well, gives Dell a differentiator, at least until others start selling this - and it might reduce its overall support costs due to the lower prevalence of malware on Linux.

---

(Log in to post comments)