Rollins: Competitors Still Trail Dell On Price

Speaking at the Bear Stearns Technology Conference in New York, Rollins said Dell is on the right track toward rebounding from several fiscally subpar quarters and that the Round Rock, Texas, company is still beating competitors on price.

"There are probably a few areas where we could have been more effective in managing component costs, and we will be rebuilding that capability," Rollins said in remarks that were webcast. "I'm pretty confident ... the [pricing] gap will be sufficient for us to continue to grow share. Our competitors have been better and closed the gap. The gap is still there."

Rivals such as Lenovo have vowed to remain cost-competitive as a way to snare PC market share, and Hewlett-Packard has virtually been in lock-step on price aggressiveness as well. Rollins repeated recent assertions by Dell executives that the company has taken steps to fix pricing issues, address service-and-support complaints and reposition itself in the market with new products.

"I'm confident in the large markets where we make money, we'll be just fine," Rollins said. "Our goal now is to focus: cost competitiveness [and] making the investments in the right places, right markets and right areas--service and support, technological advancement."

Rollins pointed to new Dell server announcements, the company's pending release of servers based on AMD Opteron processors and plans this year to "launch new products across every category we have."

The Dell CEO also downplayed the impact of the delay of Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista operating system, which is slated for general availability in early 2007. He said Microsoft and Dell have options available to goose sales ahead of the launch, including coupons for upgrades.

"Dual-core [systems], flat panels, storage and wireless technology . . . I still think customers will want to buy those [this year]," Rollins said.