Dell heads north of the border
Direct vendor announces plans for Scottish expansion
It seems there is no stopping the juggernaut that is Dell, after it announced last week that it is planning further growth into the UK market by expanding into Scotland.
The direct vendor plans to locate up to 400 new sales and support staff at a site in Glasgow by 2006. The news follows Dell's announcement of its intention to create 420 jobs at its EMEA business centre in Cherrywood, Ireland.
Analysts have warned that the move could mean even more competition for the channel.
James Bates, senior analyst at Context, said: "It is not good news, but it's also nothing new for the channel to face. The large corporate resellers are always being challenged by Dell, and will continue to be. Dell continues to take market share and will continue to consolidate."
Roger Wilson, Dell's director of communications, said the company chose Glasgow for a number of reasons.
"Location-wise it makes a nice triangle with our other operations in Cherrywood, Ireland and Bracknell," he said.
"The talent pool in Glasgow is huge because of the number of universities based there, and we found a building that we could move into straight away. We've already had calls from customers in Scotland."
Wilson denied, however, that the move will threaten the channel. "Everyone says we compete with the channel. We don't, we compete with our rivals; we just market our products in a different way," he said.
Alastair Edwards, senior analyst at Canalys, told CRN: "The move shows the difference between Dell and Hewlett-Packard and IBM.
"It illustrates the weakness of the direct model, because every time Dell expands it needs to make a large-scale investment; it doesn't have that support on the ground. It will be interesting to see what roles the 400 new staff will fill."