Dell finally starting to sell through stores (after a fashion)

[joea64]

According to this morning's Wall Street Journal, via Yahoo! News, Dell is finally - sort of - branching out from its direct-sales-only philosophy:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=581&e=1&cid=581&u=/nm/20020820/tc_nm/tech_dell_report_dc_2

The interesting thing here is that Dell is planning to market unbranded PC's to dealers in order to attempt to break into the "no-name" PC market, which, according to the story, still accounts for 30% of the U.S. market notwithstanding the recent wave of consolidations and shakeouts among the name brand makers. By Dell's estimate, that market is worth $3 billion a year; Dell is shooting for a $380 million share, a bit over 10%.

Comments? (I suspect most of the folks here have so-called "no-name" computers; my own primary machine isn't just no-name, it's home-built!)

-Joe-

[iisbob]

My nephew works for Dell in nashville; he told me about this about a month ago-and from what he tells me, it's the most basic you can get for $500.

Dell is going to provide limited tech support on it ( the model 2300 i believe he called it ), but for $500 i wouldnt expect much of a system!

Now take into account the price includes a monitor.

How's that for your everyday cookiecutter product?!

[joea64]

H'mmmmm - let's see, this is what I laid out for my system (bearing in mind that the monitor is used and that the keyboard and mouse are about the only carryovers from the hand-me-down I inherited last year and on which I started building my current unit:)

(covers only what's currently in the system)
Athlon 1.4Ghz - $100
TI-V77 HSF - $20
ECS K7VZA mainboard - $80 (or thereabouts, I don't remember for sure now) with onboard sound
512 MB RAM (2 x 256 MB PC133 SDRAM DIMM) - $60 (bought last fall, when memory was half the price it is now)
ATI Radeon 7200 AGP 64 MB - $65
56K PCI modem - $25
Maxtor 20GB HD - $59
Western Digital 40GB HD - $69
Liteon 16X DVD - $45
Cyberdrive 16x12x40 CD-RW - $55
Hauppage WinTV GO PCI video capture - $50
Gateway EV700 17" monitor - $69
Antec 430W power supply - $67
Floppy drive - $10
System turbine blower/exhaust - $9
Dual-fan 5.25" bay cooler unit - $17
ATX midtower case w/ 10 drive bays, front-side USB ports - $39 (came with 350W PS which I pulled for the Antec)
Microtek 3630 USB scanner - $75
Lexmark Z22 USB printer - $32

Total: $946
Overall, about twice as much as Dell's price, but I have a system which is very much to my liking (especially considering that not much over two years ago, I was still running a 486DX4/120 with 32MB, 2 MB of video, a 4x CDROM and only 1.42 GB HD space plus a Syquest EZ-130 parallel-port removable).

-Joe-

[iisbob]

Ok, turns out i misunderstood my nephew, the 2300 Dell is going to sell is not going to be the PC's you see talked about recently.

Instead Dell is going to provide just basic hardware to whatever retailer and the Retailer will brand the PC, and provide support.

Basicly Dell is just supplying the basic parts, it'll be BestBuy/Joe blow PC shop that will configure the PC and brand it with their logo and then provide support; Dell will not be associated with the system except for supporting the retailer who purchased the system.

[sea69]

still, VERY interesting.........

I foresee "Sea69™" pc's in every home in Baltimore(all dell parts).. will sell like hotcakes!

hehe



$$

;)

[ranchdog]

The article I read recently concerning
this fiasco refered to these as the
Dell "white-box" PC.



RD.

[Nooyawkah]

I'm running a "silver box." Think it'll sell? (But I can't sell 'em for $500 ...hmm)
http://hometown.aol.com/nooyawkah99/myhomepage/index.html