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Re: [Sheflug] Re: Dell flooding the market .....
Richard Ibbotson wrote:
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/servers_Q4
_W5_pedge_1600sc_pe1218?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd
The delivery charge is a bit steep at £49+VAT with total cost of
single
default item at just under £174 incl. VAT. You get (I think) a
dual
processor board with one processor on it. If you are rich then for
a
further £174 you get another 80G HDD and the second processor.
Hmm.. at last.. someone has been taking notice of the letters that I
have written to my own MP about high cost of hardware at places like
PC World - for example :)
I think this *might* be the lead in to what comes next. Since IBM
have sold on something like $1Bn to $2Bn of hardware business to our
Chinese friends then the ultimate in competition and such like is
about to begin. Okay, maybe I've got it wrong somewhere but a lot of
IBM hardware will now be made in China. The Chinese might not bring
down the cost of hardware to ourselves in Europe but the threat of it
might be worrying companies like Dell.
Could be that all hardware will be made in China.
I'd agree there seems to be a change afoot in hardware prices
I have noticed a reduction in laptop prices.
Dell also did a £10 printer some months ago (but I think that was a
winprinter).
I've checked the prices of making up a second 80GB IDE, 2.4G processor
and 256MB memory stick on ebuyer and it's worth getting a second box (if
you are brave enough to transfer the processor between boxes).
Nice to see that Dell offer Redhat 7.3 as a software option on this box
too.
I only use PCWorld for consumables like CD's CD storage and the
occasional floppy purchase. Hardly worth the delivery costs from ebuyer
or dabs for these items.
Did anyone watch the Richard Dimbleby lecture last night? Dyson's 'rant
against the machine' was pretty good. I can only agree that his
sentiments that we are now in no position to compete globally with the
manufacturing capability of China or India or other 'third world'
countries, that engineering and manufacturing has suffered at the hands
of the style gurus and that we the UK represents a high cost environment
whereas China and India both represent low cost alternatives.
As for prices being bought down in this country .... the car industry
has always charged what the market will stand i.e. what people will pay
for something. This is why people found it cheaper to go to Europe and
buy a car there and bring it over to UK, after having it done up to UK
spec. If one industry can do that to us why not another? It is all
about profit motive after all.
It's my view that Parliament is now there to support the corporations
and the profit motive in the desperate hope that these units will dish
out some crumbs of good fortune to the people of this country. So
unfortunately I doubt your MP will find themself motivated to do much
with respect to PCWorld's pricing policy.
China might go for aggressive marketing policies with severe price
reductions in hardware merely to secure the overseas market. But I
suspect it has a large enough market of it's own not to worry too much
(but it would be silly not to try and grab as much of the overseas
market as it can).
Whether any price reductions are passed on down the chain, or whether,
by the time the product gets to your local PCWorld store, the profit
motive has re-inflated the price back up to what the consumer will pay
is anybody's guess.
Given China dropped an MS deal because it wants to foster it's own
software industry and has now bought IBM, I'd say the Chinese are being
pretty shrewd and some people there have kept some very important cards
very close to their chest. I take a small level of satisfaction from
the fact it could be said that MS has now lost the Chinese market.
MS has a new 'campus' in Bangalore so it will be interesting to see how
China and India get along in the future.
Anyhow, have a happy christmas
Regards
Lesley
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