IBM hits the international market strong. Realizing that Africa is on the up and coming, they invest in their infrastructure. Attacking low tech areas is a great sales strategy. Get them started for free on your systems. This not only gets everyone used to your particular interface, but gets them hooked on your services. As the economies improve, IBM can raise their prices for services and have quite a market share.

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IBM on Wednesday announced a major initiative to help African businesses bridge the digital divide.
Big Blue is teaming with South Africa-based Canonical to provide a new Linux-based software package for netbooks, which are small notebook computers designed for functions such as Web surfing, e-mail and running Web-based applications.”

HP is making some smart moves too. For one, they are pulling a Wal-mart, using their clout to get lower prices from the vendor.
“The Palo Alto, Calif., company has used its enormous sales volume to demand cheaper rates from suppliers and contract manufacturers. It's also taken advantage of an improved supply chain to quickly design and deliver new, less expensive PCs.
H-P this month introduced PCs for the holiday season at lower prices than earlier offerings. An ultrathin, 13-inch laptop called the dm3 costs $549, compared with $699 for its predecessor that debuted in January.” –WSJ


"Our goal is profitable growth," said Todd Bradley, the chief of H-P's PC division in a statement Wednesday. To achieve that, he said, H-P is doing things like improving "the efficiency of our operations" and also investing in new product innovations, manufacturing, and hiring new salespeople.”
Also they have brought on the co-counder of netscape Marc Andreessen as a new board director. This should show us some improved software from the giant. Maybe with every machine sent out, they have an Enhanced HP browser? Who knows.

Dell on the other hand, is fighting to stay alive, with the recent acquisition of Perot systems, investors fear that dell is going on a shopping spree, according to barrons, their stock was up on the pre-supposition of end of life coming soon in the corporate world, and many forced upgrades due to windows 7 and windows XP reaching the end of its support cycle. But as you can see in the chart above, HP is taking more and more of the market share due to the fact that they can produce a better product for less. Dell in it’s infinite wisdom, is deciding to take hp on directly, they are looking to acquire data management and communications companies. They are grasping at straws in my opinion. The corporate mainframe doesn’t change that often. Most large corporations still run off of old unix machines, and don’t want to change. With good reason, Unix is a rock solid operating system. When it comes to dealing with large quanities of data, Unix can handle stronger hardware, and is more streamlined for data access. Dell is essentially trying to open an ice cream shop between a Cold Stone and Handels.

Xerox in a related note, is pulling the same tricks as dell, they just acquired ACS so they can offer their own computer support services as their printing market declines. Xerox has the same problems of everyone else. HP makes a better printer for less money. And with HP’s corporate document centers, there is no reason not to have your Tech firm handle everything under one roof.


Palm, on the other hand, had some exciting news. Since they couldn’t offer the phone for what they wanted directly from sprint, they went to retail giant Wal-mart for help. It paid off; Wal-mart is now offering the palm pre for $79 with 2 year contract. That is $20 less than their target price of $99. Dell stock went up over $2 in value over a week. Although I am sure CNBC played their role too, making it the hot topic in last weeks fast money.

Low baller ACER is entering the phone market. They plan on having a smartphone out by Q4 running on the open platform Android designed by google. I am sure it will be a T-mobile and other bargin basement phone carriers choice.