The mail-order computer business is starting to slow down, the Wall Street Journal reports – but is it that there are as many insatiable buyers out there as ever, and that superstores and other newly computer-literate retailers are stealing the business, or is it simply that the market is sated, and that until Pentium machines are out there in volume at prices lower than you paid for your 80486 machine, the whole personal computer business is in for a spell of slow growth or mild decline? It is not easy to believe that the feeding frenzy of the last two or three years can continue indefinitely, but meanwhile, faced with the threat in its preferred way of doing business, Dell Computer Corp is beginning to test out other means of distribution and is already in Wal-Mart Stores Inc and CompUSA Inc outlets and is talking with other chains.
