Michael Dell slams 'misinformation' over PC plans
Dell 'absolutely committed' to investing in client business under new owner Silver Lake, says founder
Michael Dell has hit out at the "incorrect stories" that questioned his firm's commitment to its client business during his battle to take his firm private.
Talking at the Dell Technology Camp in Paris today, Dell said he had been forced to remain tight-lipped as stories circulated speculating that his desire to take Dell off the stock exchange was driven by an agenda to exit the PC business and completely reinvent itself as a enterprise-only outfit.
Nothing could be further from the truth, Dell said, as he earmarked client computing as one of five key investment areas for Dell as the Silver Lake takeover nears completion.
"This was one of the things that got misreported in the news during all the misinformation about Dell going private," he said. "There were a lot of incorrect stories but it was a period when I was unable - for legal reasons - to say very much."
"We are absolutely investing in our client business," Dell added, pointing to the company's new M3800 Precision mobile workstation as an example of its innovation in the segment.
"While there have been many stories written about the death of the PC, I think the PC is not dead," he added.
Dell's PartnerDirect partner programme has always carried greater incentives for those who invest in Dell's datacentre technology than its PCs and notebooks.
But Greg Davis, Dell's vice president of global commercial channels, said client computing remains an important part of Dell's channel story.
"My message to partners has been consistent for several years: winning in the datacentre will pull the client product with it," he told CRN. "In Q1 and Q2 growth for desktops and notebooks [through the channel in EMEA] was well above the market, which says we are taking share. We are doing that because partners trust us for datacentre solutions and then bring us the opportunities in the client space."
Dell said the size of his firm's enterprise business had doubled to $21bn over the past five years. That will double again, he predicted, as the firm's return to private ownership enables it to pump more funds into R&D, which he said grew 25 per cent last quarter.
"In the last quarter, our enterprise business grew nine per cent," Dell said, as he lobbed a couple of grenades at rivals HP and IBM.
"One of our two-letter competitors had growth of negative nine per cent and a three-letter competitor reported x86 server business down 18 per cent last quarter. So we believe we are gaining share across the enterprise and datacentre and will continue to do that."