[photopress:it_dell.jpg,full,alignright]Dell produces excellent machines at the right price. This writer gets no special discount but the majority of the computers he uses as Dell. They are well built, expensive and easy to expand.
Michael Dell believed the way to sell these computer was direct to the customer making the machine to the customer’s exact specification. The world has moved on and a computer is a computer is a computer and if I want one I want it now.
So Dell, facing reality, is now selling though retailers and will expand its presence in China by selling desktop and notebook computers at Suning, the country’s second-largest electronics chain, and doubling the number of Gome stores that carry Dell machines.
Those moves, plus selling PCs through several smaller retailers in China, will put Dell products on the shelves of more than 12,000 stores worldwide. Which is a very good idea.
Dell is trying to regain the lead in worldwide PC shipments by branching out from its phone and Internet sales and going into retail stores. And the strategy may be paying off. Works for me.
Two technology research firms, IDC and Gartner have reported Dell still trails Hewlett-Packard Co. in worldwide shipments but gained ground in the first quarter.
In China, Dell is also competing with domestic market leader Lenovo Group which also makes a very solid machine but is wondering whether the $100,000 million spent on sponsoring the Olympics. My guess is that it will all turn out fine in the end — criticism of China over the Olympics seems to be declining somewhat — but it was a damn close run thing.
Dell started selling machines at Gome, China’s largest electronics chain, last year. Michael Tatelman, general manager of Dell’s global consumer business, declined to give sales numbers but said the arrangement is working well enough to double it to 900 Gome stores this month.
Dell believes that young Chinese consumers buying their first computer will prefer the superstore format of larger Gome and Suning locations to the country’s hectic PC malls.
Seems an iffy propostion and is that sort of thing told a sales manager by his wife and then all the sales staff shuffle their feet to get into line to approve. May apply to middle aged users. Doubt it works with young consumers. They know more than we do.
Source: AP