A Bright Sign for Dell?
Its looking like a black Christmas for PC makers. No one seems interested in spending $1,000 on a new notebook these days. Circuit City, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, owes H-P $118 million. And Dell Inc. has put at least the temporary kibosh on a music player it had in the works as part of a new, entertainment-based strategy to fuel PC sales.
But there was a positive sign for Dell today in a ChangeWave Research report (available here via Fortune. The consumer survey says of the few people who are looking to buy a pc this holiday season, most are planning to purchase a Dell or an Apple.
The report wasnt all optimism it forecast a massive breakdown in spending and cautioned against being too optimistic, since consumer sales are less than 20% of Dells revenue, and the company is expecting a slowdown in commercial spending.
But it did say that people looking for good value in computers, especially desktops, are gravitating to the Austin PC makers offerings.
Dell pumped up some of those offerings on its own blog Monday, claiming that its Studio Hybrid desktop is one of the hottest products available, and announcing that it plans to unveil four new desktops next week. And while the company has declined to comment on its mp3 player plans, the blog post did say that Dells consumer strategy has never been about a music player.
-Justin Scheck
Source: WSJ.com: Business Technology