“Dell Inc. shares fell almost 4% Friday after Citigroup analyst Richard Gardner cut his rating on the No. 1 personal-computer company to sell on concerns about the company’s growth rates and eroding margins. Gardner didn’t just lower Dell to sell, he cut his rating by two full notches from his previous opinion of buy, cut his price target on the stock to $28 a share from $37, and lowered his fiscal year earnings-per-share forecasts on Dell for 2007, 2008 and 2009,” Rex Crum reports for MarketWatch. “Investors showed their displeasure with Dell, sending the company’s shares down to a 52-week low of $27.07 at one point in early trading.”
Crum reports, “Gardner said that the company is being negatively impacted by several factors, including declining demand in its main, corporate end markets, and cost-cutting by competitors. Gardner also pointed to data from technology research firm IDC, which on Thursday released information about the size of the U.S. PC market. The IDC figures cited flat PC shipment growth for Dell in the U.S. during the first quarter of this year, and only 5% year-over-year growth for the entire U.S. PC market. As a result, Gardner said Dell is sure to feel the pinch of one of its most-important business areas. ‘In the face of likely further slowing in end market growth domestically, near-term prospect for Dell’s most-profitable end market do not seem bright,’ Gardner wrote in a research note.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Current market values: Dell: $63.9 billion, Apple: $57.4 billion. The next time Apple passes Dell in market value will be the last.
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best sell up and pass on the money to the share holders lol (oh someone had to say it)
OK. Once again, everyone point at your computer (or in Dell’s general direction) and give them a big, “HAHA”, in your best Nelson voice (as in Nelson the bully from the Simpson’s).
“The next time Apple passes Dell in market value will be the last.”
That time should be relatively soon.
We need another MDN branch website: WindowsDoomNews (or something along that line).
Mac resellers selling Mac’s with XP!!
MacMall.com
Oooh fightin words!
When all you have to offer is a cheap price on a commodity item you are a One Trick Pony. Apple has ratcheted is production costs down to a level comparable to Dell while maintaining their higher margins. The difference is OS X.
While Apple has diversified it’s profit base to include the iPod, iTMS, an ever expanding line of application software and Retail, Dell is still stuck in it’s loss-leader Ghetto of pimping glorified white box PCs. Their recent purchase of Ailenware shows their desperation to improve their margins.. With Lenovo and others cranking up they are just another PC supplier and they will not be able to beat a Chinese company on price for very long.
If I owned Dell I would sell it and give the money back to the shareholders.
ROTFLMAO
MDN: how come you have some ads for Dell while you “hate” Dell?
or am i wrong?
Andrew,
It’s great to see resellers taking advantage of Boot Camp capability to sell more Macs. When you think about it, Microsoft Windows XP is just another application that Mac users can choose to use (or not). When you look at it like that, it really doesn’t sound very threatening, does it?
Can someone tell me when and where Michael Dell came out with his infamous, snide remark about Apple?
Andrew, why don’t you just change your handle back to MacDude? Everyone knows it’s you. The paranoia, the trolling, all those one-sentence paragraphs, it’s all unmistakable. You’re not fooling anyone.
Charko,
“On October 6, 1997, in response to the question of what he’d do if he was in charge of Apple Computer, Dell founder and then CEO Michael Dell stood before a crowd of several thousand IT executives and answered flippantly, ‘What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.'”
More info: http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/8206/
MacDailyNews Webmaster,
much obliged.
Yeh-hhheeehhhssss…
That annoying clicking & whining sound you hear is Michael Dull furiously pounding the redial button on his phone as he tries to get through to Gardner’s desk to tell him off, while whimpering as the voice mail picks up for the 422nd time.
Of course, everyone knew this had to happen. What did they think, people were going to switch from Macs to Dells? That’d be like dumping Princess Diana for a dried-up old prune-faced hag… uh, sorry Prince Charles. I didn’t see you standing there. Nevermind. Let’s just say it shouldn’t be done.
But seriously, Dell is a commodity box maker that once used the slogan “We put the commode in commodity!” Who’s surprised that they’re suddenly being treated like Paris Hilton at a finishing school for girls?
I mean, get real. Showing up to work and looking at a Dell box first thing in the morning is probably like waking up and realizing you’ve got Nick Nolte’s face. First there’s the shock. Then you realize people will see you with this thing and associate it with you. Not good.
Thanks, that’s all the time I’ve got now. Hope Triumph is back soon, I’m getting tired.
Look what Steve Jobs was saying just two months earlier than Micheal Dell:
“Apple has some tremendous assets, but I believe without some attention, the company could, could, could — I’m searching for the right word — could, could die.”
— On his return as interim CEO, in Time, Aug. 18, 1997
So things were looking sort of bleak there, but since then things have changed and Dell is now actually scared of Apple, coming out with a line of premium computers to compete with Apple.
But neverless Dell is dying, they have worn out their brand name. Soon to join Gateway, Compaq and E-machines.
Poor, beleaguered Dell.
Oops! Did I say that?
Thurrot should read this article if he wants to report on a company whose sales ae leveling-off.
Dell needs to start using AMD chips.
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed the recent surge in Sony shares, but if things continue Dell could be bypassed by both AAPl and SNE.
No surprises. Build little boxes with costs of components and assembly pared to the bone then sell with very low profit margins – you can build an impressive market share. However, when a competitor comes along whose costs are lower still and you can’t compete….
Dell’s offers here (UK) look to be a frantic attempt to bolster sales and market share to stave off the wolf at Dell’s door. However, some of its competitors have the ability to drive Dell to the point of collapse by undercutting them to the point where they can’t compete. That’s what they’re lookming to do.
The writing is almost definitely on the wall and it isn’t saying nice things about Dell’s future.
Apple made the right choice – build up to a standard rather than down to a price ! (Dell chose to earn the penny from the many but sometimes it’s wiser to earn the pound from the few – you need to know your market and look ahead: Dell should have looked at ships, cars, even consumer electronics to see what his future held)
Where I work the annual orders come down to a choice between HP and Dell and the difference is only pennies every time. There is no way either are making much if any profit from the final prices I’ve seen. The difference is that HP is more diversified and its printer business must be a huge earner.
MDN: how come you have some ads for Dell while you “hate” Dell?
Because it is one way to hasten Dell’s bankruptcy.
MDN Take: “The next time Apple passes Dell in market value will be the last.”
Interesting graph: DELL vs AAPL
What the similarity between Paris Hilton and Michael Dell ?
Both get screwed in public.
What the difference between Paris Hilton and Michael Dell ?
Paris Hilton enjoys it.