Dell PCs to sell in Best Buy

In a move that was not totally unexpected, Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) announced today that it would soon be selling its desktop and laptop PCs at the nation's largest consumer electronics retailer, Best Buy (NYSE: BBY). Dell has taken its computer products into Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) and Staples (NYSE: SPLS) in recent months, and an introduction into Best Buy was inevitable.

And so the fight begins -- Dell's systems will be put right next to Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) systems on the same floor, where pricing and presentation will be neck-and-neck. It's been over fifteen years since Dell has been on the shelves of Best Buy, so history is repeating itself. Dell's desperation to return to its former sales and profit glory is seeing no bounds in 2007, with the computer giant re-entering retail in a large way and making acquisitions left and right -- reversing over a decade of not doing either.

Dell will be forced to compete directly with Hewlett-Packard and a resurgent Acer on shelves now. With its cost competitiveness pretty much duplicated by the competition, the words commodity business will ring ever truer on the tongues of PC industry watchers with Dell's latest retail move. Can Dell really take on such a massive move to retail so quickly without disrupting the business model it built on the back of a direct-only customer relationship? Even if not, the announcement alone should gain from applause from Wall Street.