That’s what Michael Dell is calling his newly-private company. And here’s the plan:
The world’s third-largest personal computer maker has no plans to abandon the PC, despite that product line’s sinking fortunes. In fact, he plans to sell way more of them and, if the recent past is any guide, he may just sell them at a loss. Selling commodity boxes on the cheap allows him to get Dell in the door to upsell customers on lucrative software and services. Dell has driven down the prices of PCs many times before. But a PC maker selling PCs as a loss leader? That’s the kind of thing you get to do when you take a company private. “We’ve always viewed [PCs] as a business that’s got a life cycle to it. Growth is in new areas, and it’s a business you’ve got to manage very efficiently from a cost structure. It’s still a great way to get into new customers,” says Dell.
You’ve got to cheer for the guy. First he did the near-impossible, taking a $25 billion dollar company private. Now he’s got to turn it around.
Not that it means much, but I wish him luck.
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