Dell Product Lines

Dell has been so successful at supply-line management over the past 20 years that it has been credited with driving Compaq into the arms of HP, and IBM out of the desktop computer business altogether. Its innovative and efficient build-to-order system, and the fact that it has little retail presence, has helped Dell keep its inventory costs under control in this fast-paced industry. That's tough to compete with.

The hard part of a Dell strategy is maintaining consistency in components. If they get a better deal on a graphics card, they can switch suppliers quickly. Good for the consumer. But for the volume business buyer, it can be harder to do maintenance when components change each time you buy another computer. To address this, Dell (like some other vendors) offers businesses a special program — the Dell Stable Image — that promises to keep all the components the same for a period of time. But most small and medium-sized businesses don't have enough computers for this to be a big enough problem to warrant spending the extra bucks.