Michael Dell, the computer-industry wunderkind recently named the richest American under 40, swept into Montreal Thursday night, granting audiences to a select few businesspeople before jetting back to Texas yesterday..................
The normally publicity-shy CEO is making more of an effort to personally sell Dell these days. This week, he announced he would for the first time appear in Dell's TV commercials.
In Canada, Dell is hoping the glad-handing and one-on-one meetings - he also spent half a day meeting customers in Toronto on Thursday - will help the company move up from its current spot as the country's No. 3 PC vendor, behind IBM Corp. and Compaq Computer Corp.
Dell is gaining fast in Canada, with a growth rate of 75-per-cent year-over-year, compared to the 30-per-cent growth the market as a whole saw. It currently has about 14 per cent of the market. Dell, which had $18.2 billion U.S. in sales last year, doesn't disclose Canadian sales.
"We've had very strong growth here," Dell said in an interview. "The last three years, it's been growing at probably 60-plus per cent per year. We've been the fastest-growing PC company in Canada for three, four years in a row."
Quebec is key to Canadian growth. Dell, which employs 370 in Canada, just launched a new French-language Web site and this month began advertising heavily in Quebec. "We see lots of potential here," he said.
This week, Dell - already the most profitable of the big computer-makers - surpassed Compaq and is now the No. 1 PC vendor in the crucial U.S. market. It had already jumped ahead of IBM, one of Dell's original goals as a cocky, teenage entrepreneur.
No. 1 in 2 Years
Globally, Dell still trails Compaq, but Dell expects to be No. 1 in the world by 2001 - "unless something unforeseen happens, like let's say our growth rate were to dramatically decline," Dell said.
Five years ago, Dell didn't even figure in the top five.
Dell has thrived thanks to his direct method of selling, initially via telephone and now over the Internet.
Basically, he cut out the middleman and learned how to quickly piece together and deliver PCs as the orders came in.
Dell also seized on the Internet as the ultimate direct-sales vehicle.
Now, with the Internet becoming the main reason people buy computers, some are forecasting the death of PCs, figuring they'll be replaced by other devices that allow Web surfing and
E-mail exchange. Dell doesn't buy it.
"We've been hearing that for a couple of years, but we haven't really seen a whole lot of it," he said.
"My view is that you're going to see a broad proliferation of devices that attach to the Internet to enhance their function or you'll see new devices - handhelds, televisions, cars, home appliances - that somehow are attached to the Internet and somehow exchange information and become more useful, more aware because they're now information-enabled."
But, he noted, "those aren't necessarily replacements for the PC. In fact, they augment the PC and they just addict you to information more than you were already addicted. If I can get little bits of information on my cell phone, that doesn't mean my PC goes away."
Some analysts note that average home users don't need powerful PCs. They're interested in surfing the Web and exchanging E-mail, functions easily handled by a simple device attached to a TV. Dell doesn't agree.
"The biggest thing that's happening in the home is people are getting higher-speed lines, broadband, cable, etc.," Dell said.
"As they do that, their desire for computing power doesn't go down, it goes up.
''Find 10 people who got cable-modem service and ask them if they wanted a more powerful machine or less powerful machine after they got their cable modem.
''They all want a more powerful machine because now they can do streaming video, sound, can play around with digital imaging and do things that they couldn't do before, and those are not things you can do on an Internet appliance."
Halfway through his answer to the next question, Dell got up, put his jacket on and headed for the door, his words trailing off. ...>>
I wrote to Michael last year about DELL Canada Sales and also
informed him@that time that DELL did not have a significant
presence in this city and province. Took him a year to
listen to me! Oh well, better late than never. Didn't
Dell Canada prez leave his post recently to start his own
company? |
