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戴尔和惠普的如意算盘

Who’d be a PC maker? Not Dellor HP, clearly. Investors could be forgiven for thinking the market was dying based on their slumping sales. It is not, but it is changing. If the two US makers are not careful, their hoped-for graceful exit of this former cash cow could sour quickly.

谁愿做个人电脑(PC)的生产商？显然戴尔(Dell)和惠普(HP)不想。从个人电脑市场的疲弱销售看，投资者有理由认为这一市场正在消亡。其实，这个市场并未消亡，而是在发生变化。如果这两家美国制造商不小心，他们从这棵曾经的摇钱树华丽退出的愿望，可能会快速变味。

Both US companies this week blamed weakening economies. Dell sniffily dismissed its sliding market share as the result of not wanting to play in aggressively competitive “low value markets. But overall PC sales – desktop and laptop – have in fact been flat year-on-year, according to Gartner, leaving the biggest Asians – Lenovo, Acerand Asustek– to gain share. When Dell talked about low value, it had a point in that the wafer-thin operating margins earned by Lenovo and Acer (2 and 0.4 per cent respectively) do not match US thinking about what is a good business. HP’s 4.7 per cent – down a percentage point in the past year – looks positively plump. Small wonder both are hoping for improved markets for their high-end products. The danger is, however, that even a better economic mood does not do as much as they hope.