So Dell, Lenovo, et Al end up trying to address every niche except the focused product catalog niche.
If you want a PC and your favorite brand
is missing something that a competitor has,
it's easy to switch
Like Dell Vostro, their "small business" line. Versus Latitude, their "business" line. What on earth is uniquely needed by a "small business" versus a... regular business? Why not introduce a third "large business" line? Maybe a "sole proprietor" line too?
It can only be explained as a psychology play. The dizzying array of options is designed to, I suppose, make you feel like Dell surely has the exact right laptop for you, even if that is bullshit.
It doesn't entirely make sense to me from a psyche standpoint either -- I have no idea why purchasers would possibly feel anything other than anxiety and analysis paralysis. But whatever!
My vague recollection is that Latitude were nice business laptops; coming with all the enterprise goodies, replaceable parts, service manual, next-day onsite support available and also the enterprise usual costs, lack of sexy displays, and slow model turnover.
Vostro was a lot closer to the Inspirons (sold for personal use); I think just badge engineering a couple selected Inspirons to have a bit longer of a product cycle and better parts availability.
Re: analysis paralysis, that's a real issue. I try to find some feature that really narrows the field and then it becomes easier to decide. If I required a wired ethernet port, memory slot(s), and a specific cpu family, it narrows the field a lot; then I can figure out from what's left. For laptops, off-lease entrerprise refurbs are pretty price competitive with new models targetted for personal use; then it's really a matter of what's available, and how they differ ... and then looking at the units with specific damage/defects to see if the compensating price drop makes sense; personally, I'd take several dead pixels for $100 off, cause I don't do pixel peeping work anyway.
Dell also had the Precision line, which was very posh. These cost a lot more.
The Vostro line eventually showed up. They were noisier, and lighter/flimsier, less-expandable, and harder to work on. But they did cost less to buy.
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I would never buy a Vostro computer for myself. I think that buying cheapness as a primary feature is dumb. Given a choice between good/better/best, I tend to pick "better." I like being able to get what I think is a better design, even though it generally costs somewhat more. I don't want the cheapest car tires, the cheapest hand tools, or the cheapest PC.
But the company chose to operate as cheap-at-every-expense. The Vostro line was a perfect fit for their buying proclivities, so that's what they started buying. (I didn't like that, but those decisions were above of my paygrade.)
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Was Dell wrong for offering several different classes of computer back then?
Are they wrong for doing so today?
Why? Why not?
(Remember: In the insatiable quest for the bottom dollar, the company kept buying Dell computers. We could have began giving those dollars to one of their competitors instead, but we did not do so. This suggests that the model is not bullshit at all: After all, they are in the business of selling computers, and we kept buying them.)
Given a choice between good/better/best
What I and others have always questioned is how far beyond that Dell goes. It's not good/better/best; it's Vostro/Alienware/Precision/Inspiron/Latitude/XPS/etc... which all have their own array of models and internal good/better/best subdivisions.
We could have began giving those dollars to one
of their competitors instead, but we did not do so.
This suggests that the model is not bullshit at all:
After all, they are in the business of selling computers,
and we kept buying them.
Which variables helped? Which hurt? Was the dizzying model lineup a pro, con, or neither? The only thing we can conclude from the facts you presented is that the proliferation of Dell's models was not a dealbreaker for your particular company.
Dell has a lot of other things going for them. Namely, their name. They have been around for ages and their products are... fine. Nobody ever got fired for buying Dell. PCs are commodities; by definition one PC can't really outshine or outprice another too much on any technical level because they're all using the same core components. So name really matters. I think that is the overwhelming reason why people buy them, not "I love that they sell 100 different laptop models at any given time."