This isn't about the PC industry, per se. Smart money wrote Compaq off over 2 years ago. A company that can't figure out how to handle its inventory and channel properly does NOT go out on a merger shopping spree to look 'big'. Consumers have more inertia than companies. Bigger, is NOT, better.
Inventory control is crucial.
Dell knows what it's doing here, but Compaq is flailing about because it can't grasp this. Consumers are the most erratic, fickle and outright risky market to venture into. If you go into the consumer market, you need both radical innovation AND amazing marketing. Further, you say we shouldn't buy from those company's that don't 'get it'. Jesse, you never HAVE gotten it, yet we still read you every day.