OK, I too haven’t read all of the 274 page public filing that Dell made on Thursday relating to their latest musing about going private. But what did interest me was the statement about the “uncertain adoption of the Windows 8 operating system and unexpected slowdowns in the enterprise Windows 7 upgrades”. Dell cited“the increasing usage of alternative PC operating systems to Microsoft Windows”. Must admit that this squares with input from other quarters – Windows 8 has NOT created the PC refresh that was anticipated and uptake is really struggling..
Indeed, the filings show (in the words of the FT) that Dell’s business is in ‘free fall’ as both enterprises and consumers move away from PCs towards tablets. IDC now estimate that tablets will outsell PCs next year. Mind you Dell criticised the researchers like IDC too citing“the overall difficulty of predicting the market for PCs, as evidenced by the significant revisions in industry forecasts among industry experts and analysts over the past year”. Maybe that’s one of the reasons, as the filing indicates, Dell “missed even its own internal revenue projections for each of its prior seven quarters.”
Gartner, IDC etal rarely highlight their poor forecasting record. I well remember the drubbing I got when I suggested in 2002 that IT growth was unlikely to exceed 1xGDP when all the other forecasters were predicting a return to 3xGDP pretty soon. Even now I bristle when accused publically of being 'pessimistic' when our forecasting record is exemplary. If you really want rose-tinted forecasts, don't come to us. Just pay one of the others to produce a white paper saying exactly what you want to hear.
The problem with Dell washing its dirty linen in public is that the actuality of what is happening within Dell just must be as bad, if not worse, in the other major PC suppliers.