Seth hits it on the head

Boring and successful means boring and cheap

The reason Carly had so much trouble at HP is that they were under too much pressure from Dell. If you're going to be the standard, you need to be boring. If you're boring, you've got to be cheap. Cheap and standard is what Dell does best, and I don't see how you can beat them at that game.

As the choices businesses and consumers become clear and easily comparable, you've got to either be different... or cheaper.