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http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1559
Opinon: Michael Dell: No Guru, No Method, No Teacher
By Remy Davison, Insanely Great Mac
January 21st 2003
Dell doesn't owe his ideas or success to anyone else.
An interview with Michael Dell at the Los Angeles Times finds the mail-order
impresario talking turkey about what's hot and what's not for 2003. Strangely,
however, most of his good points are original; and his original points aren't good.
Here's a sample:
"I think wireless is a pretty killer app."
Last time we looked, wireless wasn't an application, but we'll let that one go through
to the backstop. It would also be petty to mention that Apple was first in 1999 with
wireless on the original iBook. Not to mention 54Mbps 802.11g, announced at MWSF.
"Certainly DVD is everywhere".
Not sure whether he means he has a home DVD player. But we also seem to recall that
Apple ignited the consumer video revolution with iMovie and then by mass-introducing
the DVD-R SuperDrive in the Power Mac G4 in January 2001. Add iDVD to that as well.
"Consumers are increasingly using the PC as the center of the entertainment universe,
so they're hooking up all sorts of things. The PC has become the center of the
entertainment experience, with digital photographs, digital movies, DVDs, imaging."
Hm. Kinda think I've heard this before, but can't remember the name of the guy who
said it first. Anyone?
"Q. Apple Computer Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs said 2003 is the year of the laptop
for that company. What would you say this is the year of for Dell?
A. We have been growing quite broadly in enterprise. Servers and storage and services
are big areas of growth for Dell. Also software and peripherals, including things like
PDAs and later this year, printers. And, of course, our consumer business."
[Translation: We have no ideas whatsoever, add zero valiue to products, and
essentially leech off whatever comes out of Apple, Microsoft and Intel. R&D costs
money, you know, and we'd much rather wrap other people's ideas in brown boxes and
mail them to you. And you can pay for the privilege. And the postage, bozo.
"Q. You recently introduced a hand-held personal digital assistant but not a tablet
computer. You don't think tablets are the way of the future in computing?
A. It remains to be seen how big of a market that is. The hypothesis is that there
will be some 500,000 tablets sold in 2003. That's out of a computer market of roughly
130 million, so it's not necessarily a huge part of the market, if you know what I
mean.
We don't think we're missing out on a massive near-term opportunity. It's pretty easy
to enter the market. Developing the product is not the issue. The issue is, is there a
volume market for the product?"
Introducing a Tablet PC would constitute a risk and possible investment. Why should we
do that? See above.
"Q. Are you planning to open retail stores, like Apple Computer Inc. and Gateway Inc.?
A. No. We have 57 kiosks."
Heck, it's cheaper than actually employing people.
"These [kiosks] are not really what you'd call a big store. It's a little tiny thing,
like in a mall. They're in the aisles. If it doesn't work, we put it in the back of
the truck and we go on to the next one."
It's my brother's truck. And if he said I took it again without asking, he'd have me
indicted for grand theft auto.
"We don't have any inventory there. You can see the product and touch the product. You
can actually order the product online at a kiosk, but you can't take it with you."
Mm...Dell notebook...
"Q. If President Bush's tax plan goes through, would you consider paying dividends?
A. Absolutely we would consider it."
God forbid a public company pay dividends. I thought they were personal fiefdoms.
(The End).
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