Dell Computer battles its rivals with a lean machine: company's swift budget and price cuts led to '92 profit despite recession
Article Abstract:
Dell Computer Corp's policy of cutting out expenditures that do not benefit the customer has put the company in a strong position in the computer industry. By keeping Dell from behaving like a big company, Michael Dell, founder and chief executive officer, plans to keep the company's products less expensive than its competitors, increasing its market share. Dell expects $1 billion in sales in FY 1992, but Mr Dell will not become complacent. Some of Dell's cost-cutting measures include doing away with superfluous office furniture, such as credenzas, and eliminating expensive gadgets and travel arrangements. The direct channel has been a boon to Dell because it can better control its product pricing. Overseas business revenue doubled in FY 1991 and Dell's net income rose 87 percent, to $50.9 million, and per-share net increased 55 percent, to $2.11 a share. Dell is more vigilant about its inventory and technology investments than in the past and is keeping to areas in which the market is viable.
Publication Name: The Wall Street Journal Western Edition
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0193-2241
Year: 1992
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Seymour Cray's woes reflect tough times for supercomputers
Article Abstract:
Sixty-seven-year-old Seymour Cray faces an uphill battle to get funding for his Cray Computer Corp and to sell the supercomputer that he has been working on for ten years but has not yet released. Cray's plight dramatizes the problems of the supercomputer industry, once highly profitable but now hit by the double whammy of the recession and feuding over future technological direction. Sales of high-performance computers fell 11 percent to about $2.14 billion in 1992, according to consulting firm Smaby Group Inc. Some supercomputer makers, such as Cray, argue that the federal government is picking winners and losers by the way in hands out research grants. Cray is working on a design that calls for using a few big processors. Now, however, supercomputers that use massively parallel processors are more popular.
Publication Name: The Wall Street Journal Western Edition
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0193-2241
Year: 1993
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U.S. agrees to help Cray Research develop supercomputer software
Article Abstract:
The Department of Energy (DOE) agreed in Oct 1992 to aid Cray Research Inc with its development of software for massively parallel supercomputers. The project, for which the DOE and Cray will share costs, is expected to last three years and cost about $70 million. A number of US companies are also expected to participate in the project. It will include developing software applications in material design, defense systems, advanced manufacturing and environmental modeling. Analysts believe that the DOE's decision to help Cray was made in order to stave off criticism that the government has been giving too much money to Cray's smaller competitors, such as Thinking Machines Corp. Analysts also predict that the project might give Cray some momentum for further success.
Publication Name: The Wall Street Journal Western Edition
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0193-2241
Year: 1992
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