Following its fiscal second quarter loss (CI No 2,235), the first since it went public, Dell Computer Corp told Reuter it has shifted priorities, with liquidity becoming foremost and gaining market share now third on the list, Michael Dell said priorities now are liquidity, profitability and growth, Dell said, adding that the previous emphasis on grabbing market share was correct for a time as Dell focused on becoming one of the leading players in the personal computer arena, but Dell is now changing the structure of its incentives program to its sales employees to generate profitability not revenues; it says it sees significant improvement in cash flow in the current quarter and that a backlog that was $25m higher than expected helped depress the financial results – it had a large number of orders for desktops and servers that it was unable to ship because the orders came in just before the quarter ended, but they were shipped in the first week of the third quarter; geographically, the US grew 9% from the first quarter and international markets outside Europe and Canada continued to boom, but persistent weakness in Europe and Canada apears to be an industry picture.
