Kris Tuttle

Will Cheaper Laptops Snuff Out Netbooks?

A smartphone, netbook, laptop for every user. Or in cases like me for every use case, I bring a netbook sometimes when on the go but need to take notes, use cloud apps and so on but still need a powerful laptop to run applications on a larger screen (plus usually an external display as well.)

I bet netbooks helped the laptop makers get more serious about lowering price points. It's also made it easier to buy computers for kids or interns which often went without.

My guess is that this puts some pressure on the high-end laptop prices given what you can get for $1000 there. But I'm no PC analyst.

Will Windows 7 Catalyze the PC Upgrade Cycle?

The other competition that is really eating at Windows is the browser. Since my XP machines will be able to run high end browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Safari and so on the OS doesn't matter as much. Since there is no real need to upgrade applications on Windows (that I know of) the move to Windows 7 is more of a "nice to do" rather than a need. Enterprises will no doubt move to it for exciting reasons like management, security, support and so on but there's no evidence we've seen that shows how fast it will happen.

What Windows 7 should do however for MSFT is at least get them out of this punishing situation of people not wanting to even buy Windows computer if they get stuck running Vista. Whether it is deserved or not (we never tried Vista) the negative label has certainly stuck.

Windows 7 should be good enough so that if someone wants to buy a new Dell laptop they will be happier about doing it with Windows 7 and will probably save some money versus a similar MBP running MacOS.

Dell Gets Ready for a Comeback - Barron's

Dell should be preparing for a comeback but it's not yet clear how they are going to get there. I agree with some of the other comments that they need to address quality and branding issues even in their core market. Fast and cheap is something everyone expects and mostly gets delivered.

They are at a critical juncture though. As companies like HP and Apple get stronger it's harder for Dell to find breathing room. Although Dell has made some moves it's still largely defined by the past.

I think Windows 7 may help put a little wind behind their business for a change but with that they need to chart a faster course than their competition, something they haven't done in some time.

Should Dell Buy Palm?

I agree that this is there more to fan flames. That Palm might be more acquirable now is clear but the stock at these levels actually makes it very hard, if not impossible to purchase.

This stuff has been in gestation for a while and most players in the industry knew about it but there was no acquisition. Don't forget that Elevation may just want to really win big on this over the long term and this is still early.

The stock is probably ahead of fundamentals now because of all the excitement and lots of short-covering. But if they can execute the plan the shares could certainly be with $11-12 by YE. (Remember the real question here is going to be gross margin, that's what makes the difference between Palm worth $5/share and Palm worth $15/share.)