back to article Dell gets a frightful haircut in Q1

Slowing sales of notebook PCs, sluggish markets in Europe and Asia, and tepid buyers in the public sector all combined to shave Dell's revenues and give its net income a serious haircut in its first quarter of fiscal 2013. In the quarter ended May 4, Dell had $14.4bn in sales, down 4 per cent and below even the low end of its …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Shut it down...

    ...and give the money back to the shareholders

    1. LarsG
      Thumb Down

      Products we don't want

      This is probably down to the failure to sell the most hyped up and expensive product they have, the Ultra Book. They failed to realise the buying public are getting wise to the hype they spew.

  2. Nate Amsden

    just another sign?

    that the present global economic expansion is hitting it's peak and is about to head south again? Seems the signs keep stacking up. Whether it's the likes of Cisco or Dell, or Europe in general or the slow downs over in Asia and perhaps even Brazil ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: just another sign?

      To some extent, I think you are right. It doesn't seem as though anyone is doing well in the x86 server world. You can blame Dell's PC drop off on iPad and the wait for Win8, but x86 servers just seem to be down across all OEMs. Maybe the Ivy Bridge stuff will pick it up again.... I think some of this just the nature of x86 though. When all of the vendors are running the same chips, with the same components, with the same OSs, prices are going to continue to go down and margins are going to continue to go down. x86 servers are going in the direction of PCs. No one, other than MS and Intel, are making any serious money in that 1U, 2U, and even 4U x86 server racket. It is just commoditizing.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: just another sign?

        .... especially Dell x86, they make commodity servers with no IP value add. The only reason anyone buys Dell is price.

  3. Mikel
    Meh

    No money in PCs

    This is Michael Dell's fault. He's reaping the benefits of his no-frills race to the bottom no-margin strategy that a decade ago killed off much of his competition. A shame that for all that "winning" there is scant prize.

    Wait 'til he finds out what W8 is going to do to his top and bottom numbers. This is going to seem like the Golden Age of Dell.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dull has been on life support for at least five years

    Eventually the Donut Boy is going to run out of ruses to reinvent his Biz under a different guise.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dell's laptops are shingles

    I've had 3 of their so-called laptops crap-n-fail in 13 months, their laptops are a shingle in our IT cupboard now. Absolutely the shittiest laptop on the market, fails 7 out of 10 in first year. in the early 90's Dell cancelled their own laptops and went to the absolutely cheapest supplier.

    And it shows in the shit.

    1. Tall

      Re: Dell's laptops are shingles

      well, if you were smart enough to purchase warranty and make use of Dell's ProSupport things would be right on track. So who's at fault here?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Dell's laptops are shingles

        Really? If you're dumb enough to buy Dell then maybe you deserve to get fleeced? Once is a mistake but to go back is stupidity.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    confusing the customer

    Dell laptops I've used have been no more problematic than any others. Though any anecdotal comments on laptops are rarely useful guides unless theres a problem and the specifics are detailed. Comments like 'its crap' are at best unhelpful, at worst FUD.

    For a prospective purchaser the Dell website is a nightmare. Rather than let you simply say I'd like a laptop, show me the options you first have to decide if you are a consumer, a small business, or corporate. Current you then see the very expensive Ultrabook highlighted, enough to put most private customers off. For those of us who use laptops for work and home we need to look in two places to see a range of different base models and drill down to see if they have usable options (e.g. not stuck in low definition graphics). Hardly surprising their consumer sales are down.

    Apple promote products, not this confusing tangle, one thing they get right. Why Dell persist in thinking in terms of their own divisions rather than customer requirements and products is a recipe for failure.

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