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back to article Dell slips into a slimmer red dress after sales diet

Dell had an unremarkable Q1 of fiscal 2017, with its parent Denali Holding Inc today reporting revenues down 2 per cent year on the year to $12.5bn, but greatly reduced operating losses, trimmed 52 per cent from $335m to $161m. The company burned through $63m in cash in the three months ended April 29 but this pointed to " …

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  1. GW7

    The Downward Spiral of Product Quality vs. Profit

    My perception is that the quality of Dell products (at least PCs and monitors) is in decline. As their profits tumble, and being driven by quarterly targets, they'll be under even more pressure to squeeze margins and pare back on already marginal product quality. Unless they can somehow escape the downward spiral, Dell are doomed to be selling landfill to their customers, and therefore to their shareholders too. I predict a program of enhanced radical demotivation (= redundancies) that will buy the shareholders a few more drinks in the short term, while hastening the long term downward spiral.

    3 2 Reply
    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: The Downward Spiral of Product Quality vs. Profit

      I quite like their latest Latitude models. Compared to what was on offer 3 years ago they are rather improved. A not-too-fancy machine, a bit plain, that does its job. It can be self-serviced, too. Just what's needed.

      3 0 Reply
    2. frason
      Reply Icon

      Re: The Downward Spiral of Product Quality vs. Profit

      What shareholders?

      2 0 Reply
      1. CCCP
        Reply Icon

        Re: The Downward Spiral of Product Quality vs. Profit

        You mean owners, not shareholders. Dell took the company private in 2013, precisely to get away from the stock market's 90-day ADHD.

        2 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Living in hope that win 10 will push up the bottom line seems to be a step backwards.

    A step forwards would be to offer laptops that didn't require windows only drivers to work, oh, and have 16:10 LCD screens at something like 1920x1200.

    6 0 Reply
  3. djstardust

    Just look at the reviews

    Of the Dell XPS15. Top end machine riddled with software and quality faults. That is why Dell are screwed.

    When I say reviews, those posted by real users and not magazines looking at the spec alone.

    1 0 Reply
  4. Mikel

    Hopes Intel Skylake CPUs, Windows 10 will draw in punters

    Mr. Dell, you might want to sit down. I have some bad news...

    6 1 Reply
  5. dajames

    Ubuntu

    You can buy a Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu preloaded. I was tempted for a moment, but the top-of-the-line model (16GB RAM and 1TB SSD) is apparently only available with Windows ... so I bought a cheaper Lenovo with Windows 10 Home and wiped it.

    That's the way to succeed. Give the customer exactly what he wants.

    4 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ubuntu

      This strikes me as odd but is common. Top of the range machines are not available with Linux, but which ones are the target market (developers) likely to want to buy? I don't want to pay for top end hardware and then have to make do with relatively poor drivers, which is the main issue, rather than having to pay for the Windows licence.

      1 0 Reply
      1. Morten Bjoernsvik
        Reply Icon

        Re: Ubuntu

        <quote>

        This strikes me as odd but is common. Top of the range machines are not available with Linux, but which ones are the target market (developers) likely to want to buy?

        </quote>

        Most drivers for desktops and laptops hardware are developed for windows. In order to get them on linux you need someone the port the driver, which means getting hold of the hardware after release.

        Best bet is to use only intel hardware.

        0 0 Reply
  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sweet Jesus, how stupid can they be?

    Windows 10 will revive the client unit sector?

    Skylake will revive the client unit sector?

    Whatever drug dealer these guys are getting their stuff from in Round Rock, I want an introduction, because man oh man, that is some good shit.

    End user PCs are dead; they just don't know it yet.

    I am what you might categorize as a "power user" in PC vendor terminology (as most of the readers of ElReg) and I saw no reason to refresh my main unit for nearly half a decade. Because, surprise, there's no need for it.

    The vision of utility computing with thin clients that Sun has engendered nearly 20 years ago is coming to be for simple economics; a cheap PC is sufficient to do all the compute tasks that I want to do on my desktop. For everything else, there is AWS and parallel processing.

    3 4 Reply

  7. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. Melo

    What quarterly numbers are you talking about? What shareholder pressure??

    The only shareholders are MS, Silverlake, and Dell the man himself.

    Dell is private now, remember?

    You seem to be writing about a completely different company, suffering under the yoke of public investors.

    0 0 Reply

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