To put this in perspective, Dell last Fiscal year made $78B and they employee 138,000 people so they make 1/3 as much as apple and employee more people than apple and keep in mind that apple has retail stores so they have a large number of people focusing retail. Dell employee to earning is not very efficient as compare to Apple, Each apple employee generate 3X more revenue for the company.
Their tracking stock puts the market cap at $18B and they have been loosing money only recently have they turned any sort of profit.
They made 78B? That doesn’t seem right. Last fiscal year Apple’s profit was 48B. No way Dell makes more profit than Apple. Unless you’re referring to revenue?
yes revenue, i.e they made this much not profited since they los close to a billion during that same time period.
To put this in perspective, Dell last Fiscal year made $78B and they employee 138,000 people so they make 1/3 as much as Apple and employee more people than Apple and keep in mind Apple has retail stores so they have a large number of people focusing on retail. Dell's employee to earning is not very efficient as compare to Apple's. Each Apple employee generate 3X more revenue for the company.
Their tracking stock puts the market cap at $18B and they have been loosing money only recently have they turned any sort of profit.
Revenue/employee can be interesting but isn't necessarily a good ratio for comparison, especially in industries where there's a lot of outsourcing. Apple could add tens of thousands of workers if you include the people assembling iPhones. The Apple workers aren't necessarily more efficient, they just aren't counted in the stats. I'm not completely familiar with EMC but I believe they had more of their own manufacturing than Apple does. Dell not so much.
I might get a lot of crap for saying this but the only good thing to come out of Dell was Tim Cook.
They apparently make really good displays. I’m thinking of getting a Dell or LG 21:9 display to replace my 27” Cinema Display that now has a dead backlight and requires… let’s say… electrical forcing… to turn on at all. I get that it’s 8 years old, but I dropped a grand on it for a reason, and this isn’t the reason.
Friends don’t let friends buy Dell . Say no to Dell.
Isn’t Dell basically a B2B company for small/midsize companies. Yeah they still sell consumer PCs but it seems like they’re more about technology solutions for businesses these days.
and for very large companies too, especially as the company includes EMC and most of VMware.
Michael Dell has never been a product innovator. He was initially an innovator in distribution model, but then he really came into his own as an innovator in shady deals. The real secret to Dell's success for many years was a deal to completely shut out AMD in exchange for kickbacks from Intel. It was the dissolution of that deal under intense competitive pressure from the Athlon 64 X2 that ended that gravy train for Dell. Now Dell is innovating in the realm of shady stock deals.
Eh. I was never happy at the court decision in the Intel case. In virtually every industry, exclusivity deals are not only common, they’re standard.
the truth is that nobody wanted an AMD chip in their machine, unless there was a hearty discount. Even after the deals were stopped, and didn’t get their foot in the door, because except for a short time, AMD was a bargain chip company, not a performance leader.
Kind of a different set of issues you raise there. Everything you say could be true without changing the fact that Dell is not a product innovator and that Dell benefited quite a bit from that deal.
But as it happens, I have some nits to pick with your assessment.
First, there was a stretch of several years when AMD was unambiguously the performance leader. The Athlon was superior to the Pentium 4 and the Athlon 64, especially the X2, was superior to the Pentium 4. AMD even was beating Intel in the server market for a period of time with Opteron, because Intel refused to make a 64 bit x86 chip (trying to push people to Itanium).
Second, exclusivity deals are common and generally legal, but the rules can, do, and should change when a monopolist (or near-monopolist) is involved. This is one of the things I love about Apple's business model -- they aren't close to being a monopolist in any reasonably defined market, so they can do all the exclusive deals they want. You don't like the terms for selling in the App Store? Well, go sell in the Google Play store to a much larger market. Apple's X-power is that they have antitrust prosecution resistance built into their DNA.
It was about 2.5 years, when Intel was in the last stages of Netburst, and because of their crappy chip plants, and gave up trying to catch Intel in speed. So they cleverly did what Apple and partners were doing with the PPC, and went slow and wide. That saved them from the heat death Intel was experiencing. The Athlon had about a 10% performance lead, and about 5-10% better power draw. Good, but not great.
However, after Prescott, Intel shocked everyone who thought they were in a death spiral, by going back to their M series and produced the Yonah, which is what convinced Apple to move to x86. That was thea beginning of the end for AMD, because again, they were far outclassed. With their incredible mistake with Bulldozer, which they stuck with for years and years, it seemed as though AMD was finished.
with their new chips, they’ve regained some life. But as usual, by pricing their chips well below what’s needed for a good profit, they’re on the heavy discount bandwagon. The truth is, they could never sell their chips if they priced them for a good profit.
Yup, I agree with all this.
I'm amazed AMD is still in business after Intel struck back with their Core architecture.
But I think I might be more optimistic about AMD's chances now than it sounds like you are. For reasons that have little to do with AMD, we appear to be on the cusp of the unthinkable -- Intel losing the edge in fab process to the foundries. While volume production with Intel's 10nm process appears to be seriously delayed, at least until the second half of next year, TSMC is coming out with 7nm (what they call "7" is similar to Intel's "10") this year with the iPhone. And thanks to the petrodollars backing GloFo, AMD will have access to a similar 7nm process next year. It's very possible that AMD will beat Intel to the next process node with volume production of the Ryzen 3 (or whatever they choose to call it). Personally, I would not be buying Intel stock right now.
The foundries aren't advancing faster than Intel because they want AMD's business -- they're doing it because they want business from premium smartphone makers like Apple and, to a lesser extent, maybe Nvidia. But AMD gets to go along for the ride and 2019 could be a tough year for Intel.
I think the process issue is more complicated than most writers comprehend, or are willing to acknowledge. It’s been true that Intel’s 14nm+ processes are more than equivalent to any of the other 10nm processes. My belief is that Intel doesn’t want to do what these other companies are doing, which is really, at best, advancing a half node in density, while calling it a full node. Very likely, Intel’s latest version of 14+++ is at least equal to everybody else’s 10nm.
the big problem for Intel isn’t technical problems (ok, maybe a little bit!) but rather the marketing war. People don’t understand any of this, and sometimes big corporations, who should know better, get caught up in it too. Supposedly, Intel will begin their commercial production of 10nm late this year, or early next year. Likely, it will be close to, or at least equal to everybody else’s 7nm.
Friends don’t let friends buy Dell . Say no to Dell.
Isn’t Dell basically a B2B company for small/midsize companies. Yeah they still sell consumer PCs but it seems like they’re more about technology solutions for businesses these days.
Mostly, they sell to large enterprise organizations. That’s been their focus , particularly since they went private. It’s not just PCs. They do a number of the things IBM and Hp Enterprise does. But they also continue to sell PCs.
To put this in perspective, Dell last Fiscal year made $78B and they employee 138,000 people so they make 1/3 as much as Apple and employee more people than Apple and keep in mind Apple has retail stores so they have a large number of people focusing on retail. Dell's employee to earning is not very efficient as compare to Apple's. Each Apple employee generate 3X more revenue for the company.
Their tracking stock puts the market cap at $18B and they have been loosing money only recently have they turned any sort of profit.
Revenue/employee can be interesting but isn't necessarily a good ratio for comparison, especially in industries where there's a lot of outsourcing. Apple could add tens of thousands of workers if you include the people assembling iPhones. The Apple workers aren't necessarily more efficient, they just aren't counted in the stats. I'm not completely familiar with EMC but I believe they had more of their own manufacturing than Apple does. Dell not so much.
Revenue per employee is very useful when comparing like to like. It’s even useful when comparing industry to industry.
Michael Dell has never been a product innovator. He was initially an innovator in distribution model, but then he really came into his own as an innovator in shady deals. The real secret to Dell's success for many years was a deal to completely shut out AMD in exchange for kickbacks from Intel. It was the dissolution of that deal under intense competitive pressure from the Athlon 64 X2 that ended that gravy train for Dell. Now Dell is innovating in the realm of shady stock deals.
Eh. I was never happy at the court decision in the Intel case. In virtually every industry, exclusivity deals are not only common, they’re standard.
the truth is that nobody wanted an AMD chip in their machine, unless there was a hearty discount. Even after the deals were stopped, and didn’t get their foot in the door, because except for a short time, AMD was a bargain chip company, not a performance leader.
Kind of a different set of issues you raise there. Everything you say could be true without changing the fact that Dell is not a product innovator and that Dell benefited quite a bit from that deal.
But as it happens, I have some nits to pick with your assessment.
First, there was a stretch of several years when AMD was unambiguously the performance leader. The Athlon was superior to the Pentium 4 and the Athlon 64, especially the X2, was superior to the Pentium 4. AMD even was beating Intel in the server market for a period of time with Opteron, because Intel refused to make a 64 bit x86 chip (trying to push people to Itanium).
Second, exclusivity deals are common and generally legal, but the rules can, do, and should change when a monopolist (or near-monopolist) is involved. This is one of the things I love about Apple's business model -- they aren't close to being a monopolist in any reasonably defined market, so they can do all the exclusive deals they want. You don't like the terms for selling in the App Store? Well, go sell in the Google Play store to a much larger market. Apple's X-power is that they have antitrust prosecution resistance built into their DNA.
It was about 2.5 years, when Intel was in the last stages of Netburst, and because of their crappy chip plants, and gave up trying to catch Intel in speed. So they cleverly did what Apple and partners were doing with the PPC, and went slow and wide. That saved them from the heat death Intel was experiencing. The Athlon had about a 10% performance lead, and about 5-10% better power draw. Good, but not great.
However, after Prescott, Intel shocked everyone who thought they were in a death spiral, by going back to their M series and produced the Yonah, which is what convinced Apple to move to x86. That was thea beginning of the end for AMD, because again, they were far outclassed. With their incredible mistake with Bulldozer, which they stuck with for years and years, it seemed as though AMD was finished.
with their new chips, they’ve regained some life. But as usual, by pricing their chips well below what’s needed for a good profit, they’re on the heavy discount bandwagon. The truth is, they could never sell their chips if they priced them for a good profit.
Yup, I agree with all this.
I'm amazed AMD is still in business after Intel struck back with their Core architecture.
But I think I might be more optimistic about AMD's chances now than it sounds like you are. For reasons that have little to do with AMD, we appear to be on the cusp of the unthinkable -- Intel losing the edge in fab process to the foundries. While volume production with Intel's 10nm process appears to be seriously delayed, at least until the second half of next year, TSMC is coming out with 7nm (what they call "7" is similar to Intel's "10") this year with the iPhone. And thanks to the petrodollars backing GloFo, AMD will have access to a similar 7nm process next year. It's very possible that AMD will beat Intel to the next process node with volume production of the Ryzen 3 (or whatever they choose to call it). Personally, I would not be buying Intel stock right now.
The foundries aren't advancing faster than Intel because they want AMD's business -- they're doing it because they want business from premium smartphone makers like Apple and, to a lesser extent, maybe Nvidia. But AMD gets to go along for the ride and 2019 could be a tough year for Intel.
I think the process issue is more complicated than most writers comprehend, or are willing to acknowledge. It’s been true that Intel’s 14nm+ processes are more than equivalent to any of the other 10nm processes. My belief is that Intel doesn’t want to do what these other companies are doing, which is really, at best, advancing a half node in density, while calling it a full node. Very likely, Intel’s latest version of 14+++ is at least equal to everybody else’s 10nm.
the big problem for Intel isn’t technical problems (ok, maybe a little bit!) but rather the marketing war. People don’t understand any of this, and sometimes big corporations, who should know better, get caught up in it too. Supposedly, Intel will begin their commercial production of 10nm late this year, or early next year. Likely, it will be close to, or at least equal to everybody else’s 7nm.
I agree that 14 nm+++ is as good as, and perhaps in some ways better, than others' 10nm. But that's not what I'm talking about.
I am actually under the impression that Intel's 10 nm (roughly equivalent to everyone else's 7nm) won't be in volume production until the second half of next year (2019). TSMC is likely in volume production of their 7nm mode right now, building up supply for the new iPhone. It strikes me as a very big deal that Intel might be about to fall behind in process technology. Heck, 3 years ago I would have said it would be a big deal for Intels lead to fall below a year -- but to actually lose the lead? That's an earthquake.
Dell typically makes ugly bulky computers that aren't unique or special in any way shape or form.
Right up until they don't
Like David said...all they make is ugly computers that aren't special or unique. Thanks for proving his point. And don't tell me thats plastic on the top portion of the palm rest.
To put this in perspective, Dell last Fiscal year made $78B and they employee 138,000 people so they make 1/3 as much as apple and employee more people than apple and keep in mind that apple has retail stores so they have a large number of people focusing retail. Dell employee to earning is not very efficient as compare to Apple, Each apple employee generate 3X more revenue for the company.
Their tracking stock puts the market cap at $18B and they have been loosing money only recently have they turned any sort of profit.
They made 78B? That doesn’t seem right. Last fiscal year Apple’s profit was 48B. No way Dell makes more profit than Apple. Unless you’re referring to revenue?
I'm 99.9% certain he meant revenue, not profits. Their quarterly revenues are only around $20 Billion from what I see. So that would be around the $78 Billion if you spread that across 4 quarters (give or take a few billion per quarter). Basically though, his point still stands. They use more people to make less money in the end than Apple does.
On a side note...
If Dell's primary source of revenue is PC sales (which I believe it is), they're in the wrong business long term. This would be Apple if iPhone, Cloud Services, Apple Watch, etc, etc didn't exist. So as much as people want to go back to the "Good ole days" where Apple focused solely on the Mac, this is exactly where Apple would be in the end, if not damn close to it. I doubt Apple would be even 1/3 the size they are today with not even 1/4 of the cash. If Dell doesn't do something else, they will eventually die. I don't want Apple to be in this position. There isn't any state of the art Mac(s) Apple could design that could keep Apple anywhere close to where it is today. A new Mac mini isn't going to help Apple if the Mac was their primary source of income for example. Part of Dell's problem is they sell cheap, low margin PC's...like Mac mini, it won't do anything for Apple.
Dell typically makes ugly bulky computers that aren't unique or special in any way shape or form.
Right up until they don't
Like David said...all they make is ugly computers that aren't special or unique. Thanks for proving his point. And don't tell me thats plastic on the top portion of the palm rest.
That's not an ugly bulky computer.
The body is made of aluminum and carbon fiber.
It houses a 6-core i9-8950HK, GTX 1050Ti 4 GB, 32 GB DDR4, 1 TB PCIe SSD, fingerprint sensor, 97 Wh battery and has a low bezel 4K 400 nit IPS display with >100% Adobe RGB. In terms of ports it has a USB-C Thunderbolt 3, USB-A, HDMI 2.0, and an SD card slot. All of that in a 4.5 lbs package.
It's definitely a unique computer. The XPS 15 in general has been well reviewed over the past few years.
Dell typically makes ugly bulky computers that aren't unique or special in any way shape or form.
Right up until they don't
Like David said...all they make is ugly computers that aren't special or unique. Thanks for proving his point. And don't tell me thats plastic on the top portion of the palm rest.
That's not an ugly bulky computer.
The body is made of aluminum and carbon fiber.
It houses a 6-core i9-8950HK, GTX 1050Ti 4 GB, 32 GB DDR4, 1 TB PCIe SSD, fingerprint sensor, 97 Wh battery and has a low bezel 4K 400 nit IPS display with >100% Adobe RGB. In terms of ports it has a USB-C Thunderbolt 3, USB-A, HDMI 2.0, and an SD card slot. All of that in a 4.5 lbs package.
It's definitely a unique computer. The XPS 15 in general has been well reviewed over the past few years.
Yeah I'm sure they sell hundreds of them....
So basically, its a standard PC you can buy anywhere today? It's not unique. Its a standard wedge shaped PC laptop running a shitty OS.
And who the hell is gonna pay $1800+ for a freaking Dell? As soon as you crack the seal its only worth $500 and tanks from there.
Dell typically makes ugly bulky computers that aren't unique or special in any way shape or form.
Right up until they don't
Like David said...all they make is ugly computers that aren't special or unique. Thanks for proving his point. And don't tell me thats plastic on the top portion of the palm rest.
That's not an ugly bulky computer.
The body is made of aluminum and carbon fiber.
It houses a 6-core i9-8950HK, GTX 1050Ti 4 GB, 32 GB DDR4, 1 TB PCIe SSD, fingerprint sensor, 97 Wh battery and has a low bezel 4K 400 nit IPS display with >100% Adobe RGB. In terms of ports it has a USB-C Thunderbolt 3, USB-A, HDMI 2.0, and an SD card slot. All of that in a 4.5 lbs package.
It's definitely a unique computer. The XPS 15 in general has been well reviewed over the past few years.
Yeah I'm sure they sell hundreds of them....
So basically, its a standard PC you can buy anywhere today? It's not unique. Its a standard wedge shaped PC laptop running a shitty OS.
And who the hell is gonna pay $1800+ for a freaking Dell? As soon as you crack the seal its only worth $500 and tanks from there.
Hundreds to a single company would be more likely. That's not to say all of them will be fully spec'd out.
It's unique as it was one of the first of its kind (bezel design/size, performance and weight) that was well executed in its class.
It runs Windows or Linux. I don't know what "shitty OS" you're thinking of, obviously none here.
A lot of people are willing to pay $1800+ for a premium computer with excellent support, particularly for enterprise. The Precision version (Xeon 6 core + Quadro GPU in the same body), for example, can come with up to 5 years of next day onsite warranty (up to 4 for the non-Precision model).
Comments
Classic Mona Lisa moment ... hey Steve, is that a smile or a grimace ?
the big problem for Intel isn’t technical problems (ok, maybe a little bit!) but rather the marketing war. People don’t understand any of this, and sometimes big corporations, who should know better, get caught up in it too. Supposedly, Intel will begin their commercial production of 10nm late this year, or early next year. Likely, it will be close to, or at least equal to everybody else’s 7nm.
I am actually under the impression that Intel's 10 nm (roughly equivalent to everyone else's 7nm) won't be in volume production until the second half of next year (2019). TSMC is likely in volume production of their 7nm mode right now, building up supply for the new iPhone. It strikes me as a very big deal that Intel might be about to fall behind in process technology. Heck, 3 years ago I would have said it would be a big deal for Intels lead to fall below a year -- but to actually lose the lead? That's an earthquake.
I'm 99.9% certain he meant revenue, not profits. Their quarterly revenues are only around $20 Billion from what I see. So that would be around the $78 Billion if you spread that across 4 quarters (give or take a few billion per quarter). Basically though, his point still stands. They use more people to make less money in the end than Apple does.
On a side note...
If Dell's primary source of revenue is PC sales (which I believe it is), they're in the wrong business long term. This would be Apple if iPhone, Cloud Services, Apple Watch, etc, etc didn't exist. So as much as people want to go back to the "Good ole days" where Apple focused solely on the Mac, this is exactly where Apple would be in the end, if not damn close to it. I doubt Apple would be even 1/3 the size they are today with not even 1/4 of the cash. If Dell doesn't do something else, they will eventually die. I don't want Apple to be in this position. There isn't any state of the art Mac(s) Apple could design that could keep Apple anywhere close to where it is today. A new Mac mini isn't going to help Apple if the Mac was their primary source of income for example. Part of Dell's problem is they sell cheap, low margin PC's...like Mac mini, it won't do anything for Apple.
The body is made of aluminum and carbon fiber.
It houses a 6-core i9-8950HK, GTX 1050Ti 4 GB, 32 GB DDR4, 1 TB PCIe SSD, fingerprint sensor, 97 Wh battery and has a low bezel 4K 400 nit IPS display with >100% Adobe RGB. In terms of ports it has a USB-C Thunderbolt 3, USB-A, HDMI 2.0, and an SD card slot. All of that in a 4.5 lbs package.
It's definitely a unique computer. The XPS 15 in general has been well reviewed over the past few years.
So basically, its a standard PC you can buy anywhere today? It's not unique. Its a standard wedge shaped PC laptop running a shitty OS.
And who the hell is gonna pay $1800+ for a freaking Dell? As soon as you crack the seal its only worth $500 and tanks from there.
It's unique as it was one of the first of its kind (bezel design/size, performance and weight) that was well executed in its class.
It runs Windows or Linux. I don't know what "shitty OS" you're thinking of, obviously none here.
A lot of people are willing to pay $1800+ for a premium computer with excellent support, particularly for enterprise. The Precision version (Xeon 6 core + Quadro GPU in the same body), for example, can come with up to 5 years of next day onsite warranty (up to 4 for the non-Precision model).