dsrtwriter

Dell's Perplexing Strategy

In our government institution, we use Dell Optiplex 745's at our workstations. We call them "disposable Dells" since we are always replacing them every six months after they slow down or crash.

We literally sometimes have pallet loads of these computers at the loading dock. Dell workstations have become the Bic pens of our era.

Consumer Spending Outlook Is 'Grim'

One problem with the consumer driven economy has been that it is not based upon a healthy manufacturing sector foundation.Those consumers whose incomes have been based upon service industries or government have for years flocked to low priced imports.A quick bonus for the consumer with long term pain for the country.

The fact is that companies like HP and Apple generate a relatively few decent jobs in this country. We have not yet realized that much of our work force needs assembly jobs which have been lost to Asia. Our transition to a service economy has in reality been a downmarket shift to second world status. It just takes a few years to realize it, and now we are seeing it.

That is not going to happen until we reconsider so called "free trade" policies to factor in how we are going to incentivize companies not to ship work overseas.