Professor Elam

Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M

recent posts

about

What the DELL is going on?

Dell_logo
Just a few years back Mike Dell suggested the best Apple Computer could do was to liquidate all assets and distribute the cash to the shareholders.  Look who’s laughing now.  Read the latest at Mike Dell replaces Rollins as CEO.

Rollins fired as CEO, a new lawsuit alleging concealed kickbacks from Intel, laptop recalls, failing to meet quarterly reports, gee,  and losing the number one spot to HPQ, all in one year!

Apple with less than a 5% share of the computer market, has a market cap $20 B higher than Dell!  Seizing the opportunity from Napster to make music downloading cheap and legal, Apple created a whole new music market, then mated the iPod to it, now the iPhone, and soon the IVideo viewer.  All this is causing more folks to look at Apple’s computer, particularly with, ugh, another MSFT product to learn all over again, VISTA.

Bob Dylan had it right, The Times they are a changin’.  What are you learning in managerial accounting that could help you prevent this from happening at your company?

DLE

Posted in

2 responses to “What the DELL is going on?”

  1. Jason Raper Avatar
    Jason Raper

    I think there may be a small trend here.
    Dell had relinquished control as CEO and the company appeared to have strayed in a different direction; not the direction he wanted. The same thing happened when Steve Jobs was fired from Apple in the late 80’s; only to see Apple fall from the ranks and become the worst tech company on the market. When Jobs came back to Apple; those values that amde them a top producer were more than likely reestablished….ie he has them back on track. I think that Dell will do the same. Give him some time and I feel that the headlines will be reversed.
    It always appears that after the innovator and creator of the company leaves the top post, the company begins to leave its core values. Sam Walton would turn over in his grave if he saw the customer service levels you get at Walmart these days. Walmart appears to have fallen in to the trap of PROFIT PROFIT PROFIT…..
    Maybe companies like Walmart, Dell, and Microsoft need to step back and say…..lets just stay with the methodology that made us rich and keep perfecting that idea. Sometimes making money and staying profitable can be a lot simpler than executives want to make it.

    Like

    Reply
  2. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    Well Jason the problem is that Jobs had a track record of being an innovator, even if he stole the ideas, see Pirates of Silicon Valley, Dell was just another PC maker when he hit on the Wendy’s we don’t make it till you order it idea, other than that, what great innovation was there, one of the profs at SWT worked at Motorola and said Dell had the sense to hire some folks with world wide experience and that helped tremendously. Now Apple has the innovative edge, just like Toyota over Ford, Dell still makes lots of money, but as my wife said, the execs have had their stock option money throttled way back, gee, no helicoptor skiing this year!
    DLE

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment