Thursday, June 13, 2002

Speculations on the Success of Dell A short article by Michael Schrage, author of Serious Play, analyses the success of Dell in the PC business.  Dell's is one of the few boom-time business models that's not only survived the bust but looks better for it. In one of the worst PC markets in history, Dell gained enough share lastyear (from 12 to 15 percent) to become the number-one company in the business. At a time when every one of its major competitors is losing money in PCs, Dell is making it, keeping margins flat while waging a price war that's destroying its rivals. Schrage suggests that this success is due to tight intergration with suppliers, so tight that they become equal partners in the enterprise. Wired: The Dell Curve. [Hack the Planet] 10:57:54 PM     The End of the Rock Star I ran across this article a few days ago via another source but wanted to commend it to everyone.  I found the analogy between novelists in the first half of the twentieth century and rock stars in the second half of the century to be the most illuminating explanation I've seen for the decline of "serious literature."  When I worked at B&N I often fought against the tyranny of the big-book publishing machine that churns out John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Stephen King and ignores Ted Mooney, Richard Powers, and Andrew Crumey. New York Magazine.  Michael Wolff.  The demise of the music industry.  Excellent article.  >>>The music business, this theory acknowledges, is about selling technology as much as music. From mono to stereo to Walkman. It just happens that the next stage of technological development in the music business has largely excluded the music business itself.<<<  [John Robb's Radio Weblog] 10:47:55 PM     A Call to Arms for the End to End Network Michael Fraase has an excellent piece at Arts and Farces that unifies all of the issues surrounding media conglomerates, broadband spectrum access rights, and the erosion of the end to end network philosophy that the internet was built on and offers a call to arms against a content controlled internet where the biggest corporations own the network and the content. The case for dumb plumbing. Imagine if you paid for your home’s plumbing by the type of waste transported through the system. You’d pay one rate for solid waste, another rate for liquid, and yet another for any, um,  mysterious blends. The billing would be a confusing nightmare and specially designed waste monitors would have to be implemented to virtually “sort” the various waste types. Now imagine paying for your Internet connectivity in the same manner, based on the type of content you produce and consume. The current connectivity model of paying by the diameter of the pipe would be replaced by a model where specialized content monitors would tally your monthly bill based on the type and amount of content you consume. The same monitoring system would apply to anything you produced and distributed via the net. It’s called content-based billing and it’s the wet dream of the new economy carpetbaggers: Read more.... [ARTS & FARCES internet] 10:39:06 PM

© Copyright 2002 Todd Suomela. Last update: 6/27/2002; 12:36:49 AM.