Yes sir, would I lie?
September 11, 1997, TechWeb News
Dell CFO Speaks His Mind
BySteven Burke
NEW YORK -- Dell's chief financial officer Tom Meredith said the company is not interested in performing high-end, mission-critical client/server consulting, re-engineering, and integration. "At the very highest level, that [segment] is 7 percent of the business," Meredith said. "We are not in that space. We don't want to be in that space. It is not currently driving real value for us or our shareholders. There is a great deal of complexity in that, and, frankly, we don't see a lot of value at that level." Meredith added that Dell does not break out its service revenue.
Meredith spoke Thursday at the Robinson-Humphrey Co.-CRN Computer Sales Channel Conference in New York.
He said Dell has several hundred service representatives on staff and is adding a number of systems engineers, systems consultants, and specialized account engineers, but he said Dell is not aiming to provide client/server re-engineering on accounting or database systems.
"I am not interested. That's not my business. ... That is not one of the problems I want to solve," he said.
Dell is partners with such companies as Digital Equipment to service accounts. Meredith said IBM and others may have separate arrangements with such service providers, but Dell has "equal access and great terms and conditions" with those service providers.
"True value-added service providers are, essentially, hard to find," Meredith said.
Dell is now focusing aggressively on configuration, including installing custom software and asset management.
"It is not just a box. It is how I procure the materials, how I rotate the materials into and outside of my firm, how I tag it, and how I track it," he said.
Meredith said Dell is pricing in a single currency for large corporate global accounts. Dell's global enterprise program accounted for $1 billion in sales last year, with 40 accounts, and is growing rapidly, he said.
Meredith said 90 percent of Dell's business is in large accounts, including government and education, and the remaining 10 percent is consumer.
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