Intel Corp (INTC)

[morrowinder]

fpg: Anyway you slice it Dell was in trouble...

If you go back Dell was constantly under Press Assualt for not having AMD processors. But in this same period they also began to face a fully resurgent HP after the merger. HP figured out that Dells famed manufacturing advantages wouldn't matter if it could expand globally and beat it up in US retail by lowering prices with you guessed it, AMD products(or intel if they could grind them low enough).

Dell ALSO had the huge problem of faulty accounting in the period:

http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/dell-restates-earnings-after-internal-probe-758

So this combined with a newly reborn HP/Compaq tiger destroyed Dells build and ship model. HP took over the number 1 position in the market on the strength of its overseas expansion and Dell eventually capitulated and gave in to the vocal cries for AMD products in it's portfolio. Which was a disaster when AMD was unable to deliver and Dell had to go crawling back to retail. Ironically the whole go AMD thing accelerated Dell's crash and burn.

This essentially left Dell in the number 2 and I believe now 3 spot(I think Acer has expanded to number 2 now).

The complaints Tecate linked are probably a result of Dell over expanding into consumer without ratcheting up their phone support and customer service. Thus they are now essentially on an equal footing with HP in quality perception and really hold no brand advantage based on quality anymore(at least in the general public perception).

Truthfully, most commodity PCs are of very cheap quality now. So HP has won the crap war:P

And Intel's real involvement in this? Dell apparently lost their rebates at about the same time as HP was really ramping its expansion strategy and the combined effect of losing the Intel rebates(which arguably are volume based since Dell had to cede some intel sales to accomodate AMD). At a time when it could least afford to lose revenue it was forced to change its Intel only model and it blew up big time. And Dell and AMD had terrible execution issues to compound the errors.

Michael Dell is back. Dell is recovering but their old manufacturing model is dead and their brand was tarnished. Mostly thanks to HP though, not Intel. And mostly because of the global effect inflection point that Dell didn't embrace quickly enough. Still, I own a dell desktop and I am pretty happy with it. I think they have a good shot at being a good competitor to HP but they won't be the juggernaut they were. Ironically Apple of all people has taken over that mantle...