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back to article Let's check out Dell, doom and the competition

In case you missed it: pretty much the entire IT industry's margins are collapsing. It is hitting all sectors from smartphones to desktops to servers, storage and even networking. Tech has reached "good enough" for most, and now price rules. This is Dell's world, and now it's packing EMC ammunition. Software-defined-whatsits …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sell your HP stock

    I'm not a stock holder but i'd seriously consider selling my holding. The Dell/EMC behomoth could verywell steamroller what accounts you have left.

    If you have any that is after the lastest re-org and the next round of head cuts and the inevitable re-org, HP seem to be in a death spiral.

    This is not investment advice but just my feelings on the way HP is going (down).

    At least I got my Pension from them while I could. (ex Tandem employee)

    2 0 Reply
  2. LucreLout

    How can one article get so much wrong?!

    Youngsters cutting their teeth on the technology of the now look at dinosaurs like Cisco with incomprehension. They live in a world where everything can be addressed with an API and vendor lock-in is simply not to be tolerated.

    As much as I’d love that to be true, it’s quite obviously totally wrong. Kids these days hawk their soul to Apple or Google the very first chance they get. They tell Facebook every aspect of their lives, and then broadcast it on Twitter on the off chance anyone is interested. That’s all they know, and you really think it’s any different when making decisions at work? Really?

    Applications are segmented away from operating systems.

    In theory they might be, but in the real world they’re not at all. Nobody wants an iOS looking interface on Windows anymore than they want a Windows looking interface on IOS, so there will always be OS specific versions of code. Outside the presentation and OS layers, code is portable if properly architected, but then it has always been such.

    You can't fire your way to victory during a market consolidation (and I promise you, the next 10 years are going to be a bloodbath) and expect to have something left at the end of the day to differentiate you from the rest of the pack.

    In a world where price is the primary driver, however wrong I think that *should* be, that is exactly how you differentiate yourself from the competition. It’s happened in pretty well every mature market, and let’s face it, the computer market has matured. Even Windows doesn’t force the hardware upgrade path anymore. The only thing really driving that is peoples need for horsepower, and since most people only browse the web and write the odd document, that need is minimal.

    The top end will continue to advance for those that need it, but the mass market simply don’t need better, faster, future proof – they just want something cheap that will last about 5 years. Data growth isn’t even a driver for better hardware, because with the advent of sharding, you just string more commodity hardware together.

    Dell is placed pretty much exactly where it needs to be in the market: The hardware is good enough, and it is cheaper than most rivals. Provided they continue to be reasonable with the bios, and allow non-dell hardware upgrades (£300 for a new network card they wanted, £20 I paid for the same thing from China) then there isn’t a substantial amount of change needed to their business operating model.

    4 2 Reply
    1. Hawkeye Pierce
      Reply Icon

      Re: How can one article get so much wrong?!

      How can one comment on an article get so much wrong?

      Your first gripe is completely misplaced. The author was quite clearly talking about techies not the general "public" youth (who wouldn't know who Cisco are) that you refer to. I completely agree with Trevor's point - the young techies have lived their working lives largely in an API driven world, with services available for much of what they need.

      As to your second point - you seem to be focused on front-ends completely missing the bigger picture. But let's talk about the front-end for a moment. People are becoming less concerned by arguments of Windows over Mac (over Linux), iOS over Android (over Windows) etc. Once upon a time, one learned particular applications which ran on particular platforms. Nowdays, usability and maturity (both of the user and the software) mean that the focus is on the tool, not the platform, and the tools are much more interchangeable on any platform. As to the bigger picture, following on from the first point, services are becoming the norm. I can access various services from a development point of view (from database or email, to higher level services) without a care as to what the platform is - it's simply irrelevant to me because all I care about is the service that I'm consuming not the underlying nuts and bolts.

      Your last point is a complete non-sequitur to me. "Consolidation" says to me that everyone ends up producing the same thing - hence as Trevor says, no differentiation. If you have differentiation then it's not a consolidated market!

      6 1 Reply
      1. LucreLout
        Reply Icon

        Re: How can one article get so much wrong?!

        Your first gripe is completely misplaced. The author was quite clearly talking about techies not the general "public" youth

        Yes, and they're simply no different. The very first thing they do is lock themselves into a vendor eco-system. It's what they know. At the simplest level, how many do you think switch between Bing and Google for search?

        young techies have lived their working lives largely in an API driven world, with services available for much of what they need

        Consumed via Java (*nix), C# (MS), or JS, by and large. And it is to that framework they have locked themselves in - the percentage of developers that are properly proficient with .NET and Java is very small. The percentage of admins that are genuinely capable in both *nix and Win worlds is vanishingly small. How many DBAs are the daddy with both Oracle and SQL Server? Not many.

        As to your second point - you seem to be focused on front-ends completely missing the bigger picture.

        Front ends were just one end of the example I gave - the other side being the interoperation with elements of the OS. Most applications have both, and nearly all applications have one or the other somewhere. Where the GUI sits is a fundamental driver of tooling choice, moreso than almost any other concern.

        the focus is on the tool, not the platform, and the tools are much more interchangeable on any platform.

        For a small subset of roles, maybe, but for the vast majority the tooling runs almost universally on one stack. Oracle will almost universally be sat on a *nix box, SQL Server on a Win platform, and so it goes. In terms of middleware things get a little more portable, but again, MSMQ will be on Win, and IBM MQ will usually not.

        I can access various services from a development point of view (from database or email, to higher level services) without a care as to what the platform is - it's simply irrelevant to me because all I care about is the service that I'm consuming

        Sure, if you work for a mom & pop level business. Otherwise you'll be using the corporate mailserver, the corporate database server etc, and those will be the usual suspects running on the usual platform stacks detailed above, just as they always have.

        Your last point is a complete non-sequitur to me. "Consolidation" says to me that everyone ends up producing the same thing - hence as Trevor says, no differentiation. If you have differentiation then it's not a consolidated market!

        Consolidated markets still differentiate on price. And in terms of price, the fewer staff required per unit the cheaper that unit will be. Hence the articles premis that you can't fire your way to victory should be seen as incorrect.

        1 1 Reply
        1. John Gamble
          Reply Icon
          Boffin

          Re: How can one article get so much wrong?!

          Yes, and they're simply no different. The very first thing they do is lock themselves into a vendor eco-system. It's what they know. At the simplest level, how many do you think switch between Bing and Google for search?

          Yes, how completely different from the days of the 1960's mantra "Nobody was ever fired for buying IBM".

          Not to mention your absurd comparison of technological lockdown with ... Google search use? Can you come up with a measurable example that actually has something to do with development, please?

          The fact of the matter is that every developer of every generation has found something to be fascinated by, and to use it exclusively until the fascination wears down. In my college days it was C, but I've seen the same level of monomania for the LAMP scripting languages, and the next generation of academic languages, and the javascript offshoots. Don't confuse fascination with mental blinders.

          Plus, you actually used the phrase "kids these days." And the sad thing is that you're younger than me.

          2 1 Reply
          1. LucreLout
            Reply Icon

            Re: How can one article get so much wrong?!

            @John Gamble

            Firstly, if you're going to use the degree icon, please ensure your post has some measure of critical reasoning applied.

            Yes, how completely different from the days of the 1960's mantra "Nobody was ever fired for buying IBM".

            Strawman. Nobody suggested people weren't historically tied to particular vendors stacks. The debate is how tied they are now.

            Not to mention your absurd comparison of technological lockdown with ... Google search use? Can you come up with a measurable example that actually has something to do with development, please?

            Pick any API you care to run with. It doesn't matter. Lets take something trivial like real time stock market data. The dev has a wide range of possible APIs through which to consume the data, but will almost certainly write code coupled to Reuters, Bloomberg, or both. They'll build the systems consuming the data in the same language(s) they always use and run that on the same OS and hardware stack they always use.

            The fact of the matter is that every developer of every generation has found something to be fascinated by, and to use it exclusively until the fascination wears down. In my college days it was C, but I've seen the same level of monomania for the LAMP scripting languages, and the next generation of academic languages, and the javascript offshoots. Don't confuse fascination with mental blinders.

            Another man of straw. Nobody is contesting the behavior of generations past, only that the current generation of developers behave no differently, contrary to Pottys hypothesis which states they do. APIs might in theory free developers from some vendor tie ins, but the reality is very different.

            In 20 years I can count on one hand the number of times I've worked with Oracle databases. I've never built a greenfield project on one, because its too expensive, too slow, and generally just inferior to Sql Server. And yet a Java developer will give the same statements, more or less, about Sql Server, and will use Oracle / MariaDB instead. It's the same for middleware and presentation tiers too.

            That we have C++ devs, Java devs, and C# devs in what is not far from mutually exclusive streams rather suggests that the API has not eliminated or even significantly reduced vendor lock in. A quick straw poll I've taken at work suggests about a 5% cross over between the streams, though I don't have time to seek & state a peer reviewed citation for it, I'd expect that is about right.

            Plus, you actually used the phrase "kids these days." And the sad thing is that you're younger than me.

            Are you sure? I think I can remember the last dinosaur dying....

            1 1 Reply
      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: How can one article get so much wrong?!

        "t's simply irrelevant to me because all I care about is the service that I'm consuming not the underlying nuts and bolts."

        If you're in the EU you'd better start caring about who supplies the service & where it lives.

        2 0 Reply
      3. a_yank_lurker
        Reply Icon

        Re: How can one article get so much wrong?!

        Market consolidation happens when the market matures and most sales are for replacement kit not new. I am considering a new smartphone because the old one is acting up. This represents a sale to someone but it is not expanding the market. In mature markets you do have vendors trying to differentiate themselves from their competitors by using various combinations of price, features, and branding to entice potential buyers.

        1 0 Reply
  3. Denarius
    Thumb Up

    well expressed

    A concise summary of the next ten years IMHO. I wont miss the ruin that was HP. Dunno about IBM though. Have the feeling they will become a software and patents company only in ten years. Note the Linux push in IBMs pricing and the Power 8 little endian capable processors enabling easier Linux application porting. Remember HP tried and failed with Merced to do this. If IBMs hardware can pull it off while keeipng old AIX running the OpenPOWER consortium may mean IBM can drop out of hardware. I suggest the sign of this will be Zos getting even more Open Sauce friendly.

    The economists (no link to hand) that suggest IT has become like the automotive industry seem to be right. ARM based vendors have wound up being the small fast innovative guys running between the feet of the behemoths.

    0 0 Reply
  4. P. Lee

    >Tomorrow's technologists watched us get screwed over and over again by every company we dealt with and they are designing their technologies such that they have absolute control. Or so they think. That's another story for another time.

    I hope that time isn't too far off.

    One question I would pose is whether, given the lack of success as independent companies which knew they needed to tightly integrate with each other (e.g. EMC with Dell, EMC with HP, EMC with Lenovo - there aren't that many options) to be successful, are there good grounds for expecting post-merger integration to go well?

    If we have decoupled the applications from the OS, what happens to MS? Does AD give enough lock-in to get you to pay for your server licenses or will someone leverage LDAP or SAMBA enough to confine them to the desktop and messaging?

    I don't think we've seen Cloud really arrive, yet. People say "Cloud! Cloud!" but the apps appear clumsy and the main benefits appear to be "ease of use" i.e. its uncontrolled; and scaling *for the vendor.*

    1 0 Reply
  5. Riku

    I've said it before and I'll say it again...

    NetApp is the next Wang. <Insert wang joke here> (Yes, that's quite meta if you think about it.)

    0 0 Reply
  6. Terafirma-NZ

    All they really need to do is bring the EMC product to the Dell method. Where EMC is like HP in a very deal oriented fashion.

    What will kill them is if handing servers to EMC means EMC starts selling servers like it sells VMAX systems Dell won't exist 6 months later. But if they can turn EMC into the engineering business and Dell the selling this will set them on top. It would also drastically reduce the required EMC business as we all know they have some of the biggest marketing teams around.

    What I do find most interesting is that they are sending servers to EMC but not network and looking at Dell's networking they have the open OS independent market captured well but only a small set of gear and this leaves me thinking that this was done to not push Brocade away maybe even to fold them in with it all. I mean no one seems to be talking about them but how long can Brocade go as a networking only company, even Cisco had to add other verticals. Folding them in make a lot of sense to me.

    0 0 Reply

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