buy, which closed Jan. 28—and change much, Baker said, was its vious year. Several analysts agreed
its services portfolio, through its commercial PC business. While that Dell’s move into retail con-Nov. 15 purchase of Everdream, the company did introduce new sumer markets, while not a huge
which made SAAS (software as a technologies, such as mobile work- step forward, helped reverse some
service) offerings for remote ser- stations with solid-state drives, of the losses. Dell also has its eye
vice management. Services is an most of the advances were aimed on emerging markets, opening a
area of Dell’s commercial business at improving consumer PCs as new facility in Poland in January to
in which many IT watchers say it well as those for small and mid- better supply Eastern Europe.
lagged far behind Hewlett-Packard size businesses. In July, Michael In addition, Dell maintains its
and IBM. Dell personally introduced the No. 1 ranking as the PC vendor of
In July, Dell also bought Silver- Vostro line for smaller compa- choice for the enterprise, according
back Technologies, another ser- nies. The Vostro systems were to Forrester Research.
vice delivery vendor that offered simpler to install and eliminated Storage also will be a key focus
a platform for remote monitoring “bloatware.” for Dell. The company Feb. 4 began
and management of infrastruc- “They have been much more worldwide delivery of EqualLogic’s
ture hardware, such as servers, responsive to the midmarket and SAN (storage area network) arrays
storage devices, PCs and in the form of the Dell
notebooks. An evolving Dell EqualLogic PS5000
In another acquisition, series. The arrays use
Dell in November com- During his tenure as CEO, Kevin Rollins made the move
to bring AMD technology to Dell’s servers. Since EqualLogic’s iSCSI
pleted the purchase of retaking the reins as the top executive a year ago, architecture, which
ASAP Software, which Michael Dell has made more changes, including: Dell officials say is
brought software licens- Embracing the channel Though still holding true twice as fast as con-
ing and asset manage- to its direct-sales model, Dell has aggressively courted
resellers and retailers such as Wal-Mart and Staples. ventional storage arrays
ment capabilities to go Growing through acquisitions A key part of this and easier to install and
with the OEM’s experi- strategy was buying storage provider EqualLogic in maintain, thanks to a
ence with commercial IT November for $1.4 billion; Dell also bought SAAS simpler-to-use manage-and services. company Everdream in November. ment GUI and a new
Stephen Baker, an ana- Fixing the financials Using
an internal auditing group, tool kit.
lyst with The NPD Group, Dell by October had O n t h e f i n a n c i a l
said that in the next year, straightened out the fiscal side, Dell managed to
Dell has to make sure that issues that had plagued
the company for more than overcome some of the
it not only keeps up with its a year. Source: e W problems that plagued
EEK reporting
channel strategy to ensure Rollins before he left
that it works and gets bet- the company in January
ter as time passes but also contin- to their consumer users in gen- 2007. By October, Dell’sowninternal
ues with its acquisition strategy eral,” Baker said. “Right now, those auditing committee had announced
and integrates those parts into the are the biggest opportunities and that some executives had changed
company’s portfolio. the fastest-growing segment of the financial reports to meet quarterly
“In terms of acquisitions, they market.” Wall Street expectations, and the
really don’t have the time to sit For more than a year, Dell, always company ultimately had to restate
back and absorb what they did,” known best as a PC vendor, watched $92 million in earnings.
Baker said, adding that Dell will asitsshareofthe PCmarketslipped When Dell reported its third-likely continue to focus on pur- behind that of HP. Dell also found quarter number for fiscal year 2008
chases that help it with storage its PC business further threatened in November, its revenue increased
and services. “They have to con- by lines of cheap laptops from the 9 percent year over year, to $15.6
stantly make sure these acquisi- likes of Acer and Toshiba. billion, while its net income jumped
tions are worthwhile and help the The company has now managed 27 percent, to $766 million. Dell is
company keep up with the pace of to stem its losses in the worldwide slated to report its fourth-quarter
technology. Dell has to keep its PC market. Research company IDC earnings Feb. 28. ´
foot on the accelerator in order to found that Dell shipped nearly 400
keep up its advantage.” million PCs in 2007, an increase of Senior Writer Chris Preimesberger
