Dell shares drop a like a rock

2) SaaS and other clouded operations have outsourced IT such that though knowledge workers are still in need, the machines are not.

3) The ongoing recession and latest government austerity trends are forcing the market in general to drop, as large government buyers are buying less.

- I feel the biggest issues to address from the point of view of their products are:

- Either stop trying to branch out into novel ideas, or find a way to make them work. Failed attempts such as the Streak don't help them financially, or from a PR point of view. Edit: I guess an extension of this point is that their innovations are big enough that they can fail miserably, but not big enough to be that interesting. Take the Streak as an example, it was a big enough move from what consumers are used to that it flopped miserably, but at the end of the day it wasn't really a new idea, just a new execution - half tablet, half phone, which made it both shitty as a tablet (who wants a tiny screen) and annoying as a phone (hey, look at this huge slab I'm holding to my ear, I carry it in a purse because I don't have giant-sized pockets). If they are going to innovate, find something actually exciting.

- Not enough promotion, from personal experience I see less Dell adverts than I did 5 years ago

- Better customer support. Invest to become the best in the industry in this area, and customer loyalty / word of mouth praise will pay dividends

- Be exciting. The only time I'm aware of Dell products in news is for their new swing-and-a-miss lines, such as the Streak. Release a really expensive, really beautiful laptop once a year (think Sony Z series). Release an unbelievably cheap budget machine that makes headlines. These products don't even need to sell in huge numbers, they just need to get press. If you read an article about how great a company's £3,000 laptop is, there's a good chance you don't want to spend that much, but it makes you think "if this is so awesome, and the press say it is, they probably have a cheaper product that has the same awesomeness-per-dollar-that-it-costs that would suit me". And really, a lot of their products WILL be as good for their price, but they just aren't exciting for journalists to write about.

- Become the number one choice for business users. Fill the slot that was created when IBM sold thinkpad to Levano. Sure, thinkpads are still good, but it's not quite the same. I think there is a very real opportunity for one of the big players to launch a range of business laptops that can become the new thinkpad, the brand that office workers on low salaries use, all the way up to executives who have upgraded to a better spec machine. They used to get by on being the boring choice for businesses, but that doesn't work so well now that they have such big competition. Find a new way to become the defacto business choice. You don't have to be cool by offering sexy designs, or multiple colour options, in the business world you can be cool by letting people show that they mean business. Thinkpads were/are a sign of job status, which made their plain design loved for its own reasons.

Anyway, that's just a few thoughts of the top of my head. Should probably point out that the involvement I have had in marketing Dell products is purely about brand exposure/interest, and purely on a "here's an advertising company that we can spend a bit of money with" basis - nothing to do with company/product strategy or anything like that.

One big disadvantage for Dell is a lack of software design expertise, which limits the depth of their contribution to the computing state-of-the-art. This also makes it very difficult for a company like Dell to differentiate itself from their competitors, and be more than simply an interchangeable part of a commodity computing ecosystem, one in which they no longer have any kind of efficient manufacturing and distribution chain advantage. A further disadvantage is that Dell has traditionally had a lack of relations with retailers and distributors, which worked fine when you were selling a familiar product with incrementally faster specs, but not so much when you need to educate your customers about a new type of product.

Ultimately, Dell's true success (represented by a large growth in stock value) would seem to depend on getting back ahead of the curve to drive large growth in demand, for example with advanced form factors such as head-mounted display technology and wearable computing/NFC. They'll have to do something to bide their time until they can deliver a complete novel mass-market solution of some kind, which will have to be very polished and obviously valuable to consumers if they are to have any kind of lasting advantage over their competitors. This would require the acquisition of some serious software and UX design chops, along with a rethinking of their distribution to feature 3rd party retailers, and a shift to marketing something truly novel.

On second thought, that other alternative you mentioned is starting to look pretty good.

- Simplify their product lines. Vostro, XPS, Inspiron, Latitude, Precision, Alienware... that's enough choice already, let alone all the distinctions within those lines - I count at least 34 laptop options just off browsing the two front pages (see next point...) - there often seem to be extra sub-options later as well. This is confusing and it's far too hard to figure out how two apparently similar laptops really compare to one another.

- Get rid of the ridiculous "home" / "small business" distinction. In practice I can pick either if I want - maybe one is somehow "better" than the other, but it's not obvious which. The "for public sector" and "for large enterprise" aren't options for the majority of customers either.

- Cut down on all the "deals" and "e-value codes" as well. I feel like I'm missing out because I could get some deal if I had the right incantation, but I never actually do.

- Stop underspeccing machines to claim a low initial price. This is ultimately dishonest and results in unsatisfied customers who will blame either Windows or Dell for their machine being slow - and we all know what they'll buy next time to remedy that. Also, there always seems to be some additional thing later on to push the price up - "Dell(R) Recommends Microsoft(R) Windows(tm) XP(C) Professional SP1 Really Good Edition for Business!" - well, okay, but if you recommend it, why did the advertised price not include it?

- The common theme in all the above is that with Dell, I wouldn't feel like I'm getting the best deal. It always feels like there might be some customisation of another model that would be basically the same but cheaper, or the same price but slightly nicer, or maybe there's another way to get to the same page with a better deal. I don't want to idolise them too much, but my current laptop is an Apple and one of the best things about getting it was that I didn't have to worry about any of this crap; it may have cost more than the equivalent Dell (although it probably didn't: see next point) but it felt like I was paying a fair price for it, not haggling with someone else who held all the cards.

- Apple is killing them on things like product design and battery life. This is not really surprising from these two companies, but I'm not even convinced Dell are really cheaper any more, especially around the cheaper Macbook Pros. It is kind of a problem if your competitor can produce a better product for the same price as yours... I guess Dell either need to be significantly cheaper than Apple or their product needs to be more competitive. Maybe the market has moved here a bit; nobody understands the difference between the myriad processor models any more, and to most people it no longer matters anyway, but I'll pay actually quite a lot of money for Apple's aluminium case.

- Try to grow some taste. Nobody wants a hot pink laptop case. Or bright red, either. Stop showing me pictures of them.

- More fundamentally, I think Dell have lost sight of the customer experience as a goal; it feels like it's been sacrificed to MBA, the god of Increased Profitability and Market Segmentation. That seemed to work ten years ago, but I don't think it works for customers any more. Step back and have a serious, honest think about how your customers would see you.

I try to avoid just saying "be more like Apple" because I worry that starts to sound a bit like fanboyism, but I guess a lot of it is coming through above. I don't think you have to clone them to win this game; for that matter, I don't think Dell can actually win any more, but they could still cannibalise a lot of HP's market if they sharpen up a bunch.