Almost two years ago I attended the Dell analyst meeting in Austin to hear about the rollout of the new management team and the new business plan Michael Dell was embracing upon his return to the company. After a day of presentations when all the new top folks were assembled on the dais, what was shockingly clear was that Mr. Dell had assembled yet another team of men.
Women have risen to the top of lots of other tech companies over the last 20 years, but never at Dell ( DELL - news - people ), and there was no departure from that in the new group. I raised my hand and observed that it was quite clear that the opposite of the successful ad campaign "Dude, you're getting a Dell" was true: "If you bought Dell you were getting a dude!" Now it appears I was wrong. If you buy Dell you are getting a dud. Eight quarters have elapsed since the supposed turnaround was undertaken. Still there is little evidence of an upward turn at Dell. Two years is an eternity in the world of tech. Each quarter the emphasis has changed on what went wrong. In some quarters the top honchos decided that it was best to reach for sales. Then when margins collapsed they altered their view. They thought it was best to reduce the number of product lines, simplify the choices for customers, emphasize margins and drive less for sales. They have moved manufacturing out of the U.S. and also trimmed jobs outside and inside its borders. At various times international business was going to be the lead dog. At other times focus was on reaching into retail channels to better compete for U. S. consumers where Dell was not top dog. Michael Dell is no Steve Jobs. Michael Dell only ever did one truly clever thing: He decided to assemble computers in his dorm room and sell them directly to his very local customers without a middleman. He rode that direct-to-you formula to great success and mammoth wealth. Professional managers were brought in and took the company into being a provider to the largest companies and away from being the low-cost provider. However, Dell as a company never had an original idea in its corporate life beyond the direct model that caused other companies to sit up and take notice. It is an assembler of computers, a reseller of other related products and not ever an innovator. It spends all of 1.18% of its revenues on research. Jobs on the other hand has been an innovator forever at Apple ( AAPL - news - people ), at Pixar and then at Apple again. Over the last few years Apple has introduced the iPod, the iPhone, iTunes, the App Store and now the iPad. While Dell cut R&D spending last year, Apple increased it. Jobs wants to own proprietary hardware and software that you can't get anywhere else. He wants to forge new industries and product categories. Apple spends 2.5% to 3% on R&D--and we see how well it spends that money in constantly expanding its own unique product lineup. Jobs wants a moat around his intellectual property. More From: http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/23/dell-computer-apple-markets-steve-jobs.html?feed=rss_popstories
