Michael Dell: We're Not a PC Company Anymore

For a long time, we kept hearing "Dude! You're gettin' a Dell!" spewing from TV commercials, and honestly, it was rather catchy despite being a little annoying in the process. Now we don't hear anything of the sort from the once-dominant PC company. Oh that's right: Dell isn't a PC company any longer even though a slight majority of its revenue stems from the PC sector.

CNET reports that Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell reportedly talked about everything but the PC sector during a conference hosted by Fortune on Tuesday. He covered corporate servers, storage, networking, security and IT services. In fact, he publicly admitted that his company has made a concerted shift to end-to-end IT services over the last five years. The days of Dell being a PC-focused company, it seems, are over.

This is the "new Dell," he told conference attendees. It's a company shifting away from the PC sector as the industry supposedly moves into the Post-PC era. A majority of Dell's research and development -- not to mention billions of dollars in acquisitions -- has focused on transforming the company. Dell has also made the transition without the burden of a lot of older legacy businesses, unlike rival Hewlett-Packard.

Still, Dell is "entrenched" in the PC sector nonetheless. Currently it's #4 in PC shipments, averaging 10.7-percent of the market, down from 12.1-percent just a year ago. Dell still plans to compete in the consumer market, taking on Apple both in the PC and tablet sectors. The company is lined up to be one of the first companies to produce a Windows 8 tablet later this year, but don't expect Dell to fight Lenovo or HP to be the top-most PC player.

Dell told the conference attendees that the new company's growth stems from securing devices like iPhones and iPad tablets -- devices which fuel Apple's growth -- and allowing those devices to work with corporate systems. He also said the company was starting a $60 million venture fund devoted to storage.

"It's an enormous opportunity," Dell said. "Storage has been a huge area for us."

He added that one major area of growth has been China. The company has a large presence in mission critical systems, and even around 60-percent of the country's internet runs through its servers. China is the largest market outside the States for the company, yet sales growth is slowing, causing concern for not only Dell, but many other companies as well.

  • sacre
    "Post PC" I don't know. Logically speaking, everyone will always want a PC that is at home. Something they can sit down, have a coffee and use at the home office for work, or just for gaming. Holding a tablet or using a small laptop will not satisfy.

    Desktop PC's will not be leaving any time soon, until we come up with a viable replacement and so far, tablets (I have 2, Android and Ipad 2) are just good for here and there.
    Reply
  • tomfreak
    a Monitor company I guess?
    Reply
  • dogman_1234
    Computers will always ber personal. Thanks to Shockley, IBM Engineers, Jobs, Gates, Linus, and the Many who defined the computer in the 20th century. The computer will always be here, always personal.
    Desktops will become servers to operate our houses, keep our data for our laptops, smartphones, and tablets.

    I cannot see a Post-PC era...unless the successor to the computer itself comes around.
    Reply
  • halcyon
    dogman_1234Computers will always ber personal. Thanks to Shockley, IBM Engineers, Jobs, Gates, Linus, and the Many who defined the computer in the 20th century. The computer will always be here, always personal.Desktops will become servers to operate our houses, keep our data for our laptops, smartphones, and tablets. I cannot see a Post-PC era...unless the successor to the computer itself comes around.Always? I doubt that in 200 years people will be using PCs in the ways you describe if they're still using them at all.
    Reply
  • rocknrollz
    Desktops will eventually disappear, I can bet on it. But I doubt we will see a change within a few years. Give it 5-10.
    Reply
  • p05esto
    PCs are NOT going anywhere, these nuts who keep saying that are not real computer users. Any professional needs a good chair and desk to do their work. You also need a good keyboard to type on, there's no alternative to the keyboard. A professional also needs a large display for video editing/programming/retouching/graphics/trading/etc etc etc. So that leaves us with what is powering these things? Well, a computer of some sort....maybe we plug into a tablet or whatever, but the monitor/desk/chair is going no where.
    Reply
  • halcyon
    p05estoPCs are NOT going anywhere, these nuts who keep saying that are not real computer users. Any professional needs a good chair and desk to do their work. You also need a good keyboard to type on, there's no alternative to the keyboard. A professional also needs a large display for video editing/programming/retouching/graphics/trading/etc etc etc. So that leaves us with what is powering these things? Well, a computer of some sort....maybe we plug into a tablet or whatever, but the monitor/desk/chair is going no where.i disagree. A nice hologram would work fine. ...in 100 years I doubt anyone will be using a keyboard.
    Reply
  • Anonymous_26
    Now we don't hear anything of the sort from the once-dominant PC company.

    Meh you don't have to advertise when people are dumb enough to buy your product no matter how shitty it may be.
    Reply
  • thor220
    halcyoni disagree. A nice hologram would work fine. ...in 100 years I doubt anyone will be using a keyboard.
    You watch too much scifi channel. Just because t.v producers think that the future is holograms, does not make it true. They have keyboards similar to a hologram already and they are not that good. You don't get the feel of a regular keyboard and it makes mistakes often. They keyboard will stay, but in 100 years will be alot more advanced.
    Reply
  • husker
    Thanks for letting me know, Mr. Dell, I almost placed an online order for a new laptop with your company! Thank goodness you let me know, so that I can go find an actual PC Company with which to do business.
    Reply