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Michael Dell's 21st Century
Vision
AlwaysOn's Tony Perkins asked Michael Dell to tell us about Dell's past,
future, and present, and how he thinks technology will transform the
world in the next ten years.
By: Tony Perkins, Founder, AlwaysOn
AlwaysOn: What was the most important
thing you
were working on ten years ago?
Dell: In 1993, Dell was near the end of its first decade as a
company. We were working hard to position Dell for the future. Over
that first ten years, we made the transition from an entrepreneurial
startup to a global organization of several thousand people. We had
reached about $3 billion in revenue, based on phenomenal growth, and
a focus on serving greater numbers of customers around the world.
That customer focus earned us a spot among the top five PC vendors
in the world. But we were outgrowing and overwhelming our systems,
processes and our people—from a financial, product development,
manufacturing and leadership perspective. We had to look internally
and make some changes to better position ourselves for our next
decade. |
AlwaysOn: What
changes did you make?
Dell: We succeeded in creating the infrastructure that allowed us
to provide a growing range of products and services to customers
worldwide, and renewed our commitment to low-cost and efficient
operations. From a financial perspective, we changed from a growth-only
strategy to the more balanced priorities of liquidity, profitability,
and growth. And in products, we recommitted ourselves to listening to
customers and offering only the highest-quality, most relevant
standards-based technologies. Those priorities turned out to be exactly
the right ones.
AlwaysOn: Was there a major obstacle you had to overcome?
Dell: Our biggest obstacle was our own growth. We couldn't
sustain that growth trajectory without better preparing our systems, our
processes, and our people. Otherwise, our customers wouldn't get the
quality of products and service that they expected from Dell—and that we
were committed to providing. We learned very early on that our success
is purely a function of the successes we help our customers achieve.
Dell's direct business model is a powerful framework for efficient
operations, but we came to understand that Dell's true "special sauce"
is our people. Having the best, diverse talent is critical to our
success, and Kevin Rollins and I are focused on developing people and
building a sustainable winning culture.
AlwaysOn: What's the key for tech companies to survive the next
decade?
Dell: Our industry needs to move from just delivering technology
to delivering productivity, solutions, and value to businesses.
Consumers are looking more for entertainment, but the point is the same.
There isn't a shortage of technology out there—if you look around the
industry there's quite a bit of technology in search of a problem.
We're in the business of providing relevant technology that really makes
a difference for our customers. And we're in a great position to listen
to our customers and understand exactly what they’re looking for. I
think that companies that listen to what customers are saying, and that
have a structure that delivers value, are the ones to stand the best
chance of being around in 10 years.
AlwaysOn: Tell us about the most interesting things going on in
technology today.
Dell: We're going through an important inflection point in both
client and enterprise products. At the high end of computing, there is
an important revolution going on. Computing tasks that used to be the
domain of big, expensive, proprietary systems are now being handled by
clusters of standards-based servers. Our customers deploy these
high-performance computing clusters for projects like medical research,
precision engineering, and scientific exploration, for a fraction of the
cost of traditional supercomputing. We've reached an intersection of
computing cost and capability that will serve our global community in
ways we can't even imagine yet.
On the client side, wireless technology like 802.11 or Wi-Fi is changing
how we integrate computing into our lives. Now you can stay connected at
broadband speed anywhere in your home or office, or in a growing number
of public places like airports, hotels, coffee houses, and convention
centers. As the popularity of wireless grows, customers will expect to
be able to stay productive wherever they happen to be. We now integrate
wireless capability into every notebook system we ship.
AlwaysOn: So you think that networking and wireless are sweet
spots?
Dell: Right now we're already seeing the beginning of what's to
come—in one word, it's networks. For many years, the popular idea has
been that one day all our computing functionality would converge into a
single device, like some kind of digital Swiss Army knife. What we're
actually seeing is the proliferation of more specialized devices, like
digital cameras, PDAs, and gaming devices, with the convergence
happening at the data layer. All of these devices are getting networked
together and sharing information, in many cases wirelessly. The PC has
become the hub of that network, and has emerged as the center of digital
entertainment and productivity.
AlwaysOn: Last but not least, what social problems will benefit
from technology in the next ten years?
Dell: As we and others in our industry make our products more
affordable, we open up access to technology to the rest of the world,
creating wonderful opportunities for good in our societies. Technology
is a powerful tool that will play a part in many of the breakthroughs
and discoveries of the next decade and beyond. High-performance
computing clusters, which provide the power of supercomputers at a
fraction of their cost, will help drive massive advances in critical
scientific fields—from chemistry to geology to physics.
Our society will benefit from those advances in healthcare,
transportation, exploration and many other areas. Wireless technologies
will allow us to stay connected and productive wherever we are,
providing tools to help people balance their lives. And of course,
technology will continue to play a vital role in education. Computing is
an essential 21st-century skill, and as more and more students have
access to technology and the opportunity to learn those skills,
technology will serve as the foundation of all future progress.
Reprinted with permission from AlwaysOn Network, LLC.
AlwaysOn
(AO) is a media company dedicated to serving the global community of
executives, entrepreneurs, investors, academics, and government
officials who are helping to create and shape the always-on world.
AlwaysOn was founded by Tony Perkins, former editor-in-chief of Red
Herring magazine.
http://www.alwayson-network.com
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