Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, computer giant Dell
With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Dell's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.
Dell facts
| Headquarters (Founded) | Round Rock, Texas (1984) |
| Market Cap | $32.4 billion |
| Industry | Computer hardware |
| Trailing-12-Month Revenue | $61.7 billion |
| Management | Founder/Chairman/CEO Michael Dell CFO Brian Gladden |
| Return on Equity (Average, Past 3 Years) | 37.8% |
| Cash/Debt | $13.8 billion / $8.3 billion |
| Competitors |
Hewlett-Packard IBM Lenovo Group |
Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.
On CAPS, 29% of the 5,677 members who have rated Dell believe the stock will underperform the S&P 500 going forward.
A couple of months ago, one of those Fools, NJ7, offered some customer insight into Dell bear case:
I was scared away to HP by Dell's sub optimal quality, general boringness, and its horrible, horrible customer service. To this day, when I want to slam bad customer service, I say to a friend "it was as bad as Dell." They made you wait for hours to even talk to a human being and would force you to repeat all the tests you had already done. ... Now I do think [Dell's]offerings are improving, and Alienware was a good acquisition. But their customer care remains horrendous and that will prevent more customer loyalty from developing.
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