http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/dell-pulls-the-trigger-and-shoots-itself-in-the-foot/ We Stress Test Your Strategies Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:02:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/dell-pulls-the-trigger-and-shoots-itself-in-the-foot/comment-page-1/#comment-1688 Dave Watson Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:31:19 +0000 http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com/?p=848#comment-1688 I agree with your assessment, although my reasons are slightly different. First, I think the "appeal" of consulting margin to a predominantly commodity product company such as Dell is unavoidable. Second, Dell appears to be falling in love with healthcare (note their recent announcement about creating an EMR capabilitiy - for which they have zero competence - but Perot does), which could - underscore could - explain their affection for Perot in particular because of Perot's healthcare forcus. I look at HP's acquisition of EDS and don't see any material contribution to HPs financials thorugh efficiency or other tangible contribution - other than the incremental revenue they brought - but HP seems to be bringing EDS down to their level of "consulting incompetence" instead of the other way around. You put product people in charge of consultants and it invokes the camel metaphor...or the horse designed by a committee. The price premium will simply make the impact worse. I am glad I am not a Dell shareholder... I agree with your assessment, although my reasons are slightly different. First, I think the “appeal” of consulting margin to a predominantly commodity product company such as Dell is unavoidable. Second, Dell appears to be falling in love with healthcare (note their recent announcement about creating an EMR capabilitiy – for which they have zero competence – but Perot does), which could – underscore could – explain their affection for Perot in particular because of Perot’s healthcare forcus.
I look at HP’s acquisition of EDS and don’t see any material contribution to HPs financials thorugh efficiency or other tangible contribution – other than the incremental revenue they brought – but HP seems to be bringing EDS down to their level of “consulting incompetence” instead of the other way around. You put product people in charge of consultants and it invokes the camel metaphor…or the horse designed by a committee. The price premium will simply make the impact worse. I am glad I am not a Dell shareholder…

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