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Posted
Dec 18 2007, 08:52 AM
by
Robert Walberg
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Remember when it was cool to own/buy a Dell computer? Not that long ago it was Dell, not Apple, that had the laid back young kid starring in commercials that resonated with consumers. "Dude, it's a Dell," was the stuff of genius. Dell's were cool, they were cheap and they were everywhere.
Yet in little less than five years Dell has gone from cool to ice cold. Its share of the PC market has eroded due to misguided retail practices, poor customer service and outdated design. The company has also lost its price advantage. Despite the cheap prices you see on the company's web site, or in the flyers that arrive in the mail, once you configure the computer to match even the most basic of needs, the price ends up being as high or higher as PCs from Toshiba, Hewlett Packard and Acer.
Quite simply there's nothing that sets the company apart anymore -- at least nothing positive. Its abysmal technical service group certainly set it apart, as waiting on the Dell help desk was an exercise bordering on cruelty. To its credit, Dell's management team has begun to address this issue by adding staff, but once you get a bad reputation it can be very hard to change consumer perceptions. Dell has a lot of making up to do and some blunt talk from its back-in-the-saddle CEO, Michael Dell, just might help remake its image. Let's face it, Apple was left for dead a few years back and look at what the return of Steve Jobs did for that company.
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Posted
Dec 28 2007, 11:15 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Wal-Mart has canceled its online video download service, blaming HP for discontinuing the technology behind it. What a lame excuse. If the Wal-Mart video store was doing well, do you think HP would yank the engine powering it?
The reality is that few people used it. Those who did were not impressed. On paper, the service sounded great. All the major movie studios participated. New releases cost up to $20, and older films sold for as much as $10. TV shows were available the day after they aired for $2. Wal-Mart claimed it would only take 45 minutes to download a "near-DVD" video using a high-speed connection.
So why didn't it work? According to HP, the market for paid video downloads didn't perform as well as it had expected. I think Wal-Mart is having a tough time figuring out its online strategy. Does anyone remember "The Hub," the retailer's attempt at social networking? Shut down after 10 weeks, the site was supposed to be a place where teens could upload photos and videos and talk about Wal-Mart products.
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Posted
Nov 24 2008, 08:45 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard are turning out the lights in December, forcing employees into paid time off to save money. Cisco will shut down its offices from Dec. 29 through Jan. 2, and is "strongly" encouraging workers to also stay home for three days before Christmas, according to an internal memo obtained by Valleywag.
Company-funded parties are out. The memo asks workers to celebrate in "creative ways that result in no cost to the company." Hey, how about making Christmas ornaments with leftover toilet paper rolls?
Cisco is also cutting back on hiring and employee travel. And it's carefully reviewing spending on equipment, employee training, big purchases and outside services.
Memos like these are popping up at companies from coast to coast.
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Posted
Feb 19 2009, 03:20 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Some very wealthy Americans will choke on their coffee this morning as they read that Swiss bank UBS has agreed to hand over the names of about 250 account holders as part of a $780 million settlement with U.S. prosecutors. In what the Wall Street Journal calls a "significant break from Switzerland's tradition of banking secrecy," UBS will give the names of Americans whom the IRS suspects used offshore accounts at the bank to evade taxes.
Federal prosecutors have alleged that, from 2002 to 2007, UBS helped U.S. clients illegally hide $20 billion, allowing them to evade $300 million a year in taxes. The deal could have far-reaching implications for a banking culture that has been based on discretion and secrecy since the Middle Ages. “The Swiss are saying that this is the end of Swiss banking as they knew it,” Jack Blum, an offshore tax specialist told the NYT, adding, “Nobody will trust the security of the Swiss bank account. Sticking with the long arm of the law, it appears that U.S. tycoon Sir Allan Stanford may be on the lam following Securities and Exchange Commission charges that he ran an $8 billion deposit fraud through
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Posted
Jan 02 2009, 02:33 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Michael Dell has made some big moves since returning to lead his company two years ago. He rejected the build-your-own-PC model, pushing ready-made computers into stores instead. He outsourced much of production. And he took a hatchet to costs at Dell (DELL), cutting more than 8,000 jobs in an effort to build profits. But still, Dell isn't where it should be. And so the company took another stab at righting itself this week, overhauling its commercial sales strategy and saying goodbye to two top executives. The very same executives Michael Dell brought on last year to help save the company. Michael Dell isn't giving up. But he has a long way to go to move his company forward, especially as the economy and strong competitors threaten to unravel the progress he's made.
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Posted
Feb 28 2008, 04:09 AM
by
Robert Walberg
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Like the former high-school baseball star in the Springsteen song, Michael Dell knows how glory days can pass you by in the wink of a young girl's eye. His company, Dell, delivered yet another earnings disappointment last night. The former king of the PC industry cited higher-than-expected costs for the earnings shortfall. The excuse may be new but falling short of estimates has become old hat to Dell.
Not that long ago, Dell rode its cheap cost structure, build-to-order model and aggressive market campaign to the top of theh PC world. But after years of management missteps, the company finds itself looking up at Hewlett-Packard much the way General Motors finds itself trailing Toyota. About the only category in which Dell surpasses HP these days is in restructuring announcements. According to Mr. Dell, the current plan, which calls for more staff reductions and improved operating efficiencies, is apt to adversely impact near-term earnings growth. No kidding.
But I'll tell you what the restructuring plan isn't going to do -- it's not going to resolve the company's long-term problem any more than the dozen or so turnaround efforts have resurrected GM. And the reasons are much the same -- both management teams are too focused on the bottom-line and not focused enough on the big picture. Dell's problem isn't that the call center in Canada is overstaffed, it's that the company no longer possesses a significant cost advantage over the competition. Dell was never a very innovative company -- its strength was in the cost savings produced by the model. That cost benefit doesn't exist any more and simply adding new channels to sell product that's priced about the same as Toshiba, Acer and HP just isn't going to get it done.
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Posted
Nov 19 2008, 05:41 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
It's been no secret that companies are taking great lengths to cut costs (and employees) and conserve cash whenever possible. One option that companies are embracing to do just that is outsourcing.
"It’s a boon for outsourcers right now," David Zahn, COO of Austin, Texas-based Consero Global Solutions, told me recently. Consero outsources accounting work to India for its clients, and it has seen a dramatic rise in its business in the last two months. Zahn said Consero’s pipeline has doubled since the summer. Most of its clients are mid-size companies with 200 or fewer employees.
"The wicked downturn has spurred companies to go look at something else," Zahn said. "They come to us to save costs."
Consero’s Indian office is in Bangalore, where it’s not alone. Bangalore is considered the Silicon Valley of India because of its unparalleled position as the nation’s leading IT employer and exporter. India’s top four outsourcing firms -- Tata Consultancy Services, Satyam, Wipro, and Infosys -- are stationed alongsid
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Posted
Jan 07 2009, 08:18 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
It would be hard to miss the headline that Alcoa (AA) is firing 15,000 people. The actions of big companies are probably a much better indicator for what is ahead for the economy than forecasts from business professors.
The fascinating and troubling aspect of the Alcoa cuts is that the company made $470 million in the last reported quarter and Wall Street estimates have it making a very modest amount of money this year. Dow Chemical (DOW), which recently let thousands of people go, also is a money maker. One of the most successful corporations in the U.S., IBM (IBM) is rumored to be a week away from cutting more than 10,000 people. IBM may have as good a balance sheet and earnings stream as any American public company.
Challenger, Gray reports that big companies had 166,348 layoffs in December, up 275% from a year earlier. A look at their reports for the first 11 months of the year shows
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Posted
Sep 29 2008, 11:32 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Tech stocks are getting killed today, with Apple falling a shocking 16% to $107.17. That's because there's a lot of talk going around about how the current economic turmoil might squash demand for electronics, both at the consumer and the big business level. On the business side, analysts are worried that Hewlett-Packard and Dell could suffer as companies rein in spending. H-P shares are down 5% today to $45.50 and Dell shares have dropped 4% to $16.28. On the consumer side, Google hit a two-year low and is down 9% to $392.99.
Apple fell to a 52-week low after analysts downgraded the stock. A Morgan Stanley analyst thinks that people will shift to the sub-$1,000 price range for computer purchases, and Apple only has one computer in that range.
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Posted
Jan 20 2009, 03:07 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
A potential white knight has emerged for the precarious Chrysler: Italy's Fiat, business pages across the U.S. and Europe are proclaiming this morning. According to the Wall Street Journal, the two automakers could announce a no-money-down deal in which Fiat takes control of Chrysler as soon as today. "Fiat, the stronger of the two, wouldn't immediately put cash into Chrysler," the newspaper writes. "Instead it would obtain its stake mainly in exchange for covering the cost of retooling a Chrysler plant to produce one or more Fiat models to be sold in the U.S., these people said." Chrysler gave the New York Times an everybody-is-talking-to-everybody-these-days type "no comment," fueling speculation that a Fiat-Chrysler tie-up is imminent. According to the Financial Times' source, U.S. lawmakers have already been informally briefed on the potential merger.
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