Dell Computers Drops on Disappointing Sales Numbers
I purchased a Dell computer for the first time earlier this year for my parents to use and for me to work on while visiting them. The investment into the basic Dell desktop model with flat screen monitor was about $400 – a flash in the pan considering it gave me the ability to keep tabs on web happenings from their house and opened up the world of eBay shopping and PartyPoker to my mom. With such a buy, a Dell made sense.
When it came to purchasing a new laptop for my own work use I considered Dell, but really did not find what I needed for the price I wanted to spend. Plus, it seemed that most of the available models came in 1995 IBM style 20 pound notebooks – not the sleek modern laptop I was searching for. Additionally, I also noticed that my parents’ Dell was full of “DellWare” (not full of Delaware) – little Dell sponsored pop-ups, search results, and other marketing gimmicks I would consider as AdWare. Time is money and I did not want to spend too much time closing little Dell Anti-Virus pop-up reminders and being forced to view Verisign-esque Dell Search Results and Ad pages when a URL did not work or if I made a typo.
So, needless to say since most average Americans now actually own a computer, there are multiple Dell-like companies offering similar or better offers, and the ones who do not may want to speak with a live salesperson before making a large purchase, I’m not that surprised to hear that Dell’s stock value and earnings were down this quarter. TechWhack.com reports that Dell is dwindling a bit : “Dell announced that their second-quarter sales rose at the slowest pace since 2002. Worse news is that the company announced that the growth would continue to slide this quarter. The news resulted in the shares of the company saw their biggest decline in four years. The company reported that sales grew 14.7 percent and were little changed from the previous quarter.
The Chief Executive Kevin Rollins said that the drop in growth in sales is due to increasing competition and the company’s aggressive strategies to woo new customers by cutting the prices of their products. In fact, surprisingly low orders from the federal government also made the situation worse than it was. The share of the company fell by around $3.18, or 8 percent to $36.40 in the morning trading.”
