Michael Dell expects Dell's philosophy to keep pace with the times to defend the company

Dell founder Michael Dell

Lead: published in the July 15 edition of the United States, "New York Times" print edition published an article that Michael Dell wants to regain the passion of early days, Dell's inception of the concept of once again into the latest wave of technology , And fully comply with the development trend of the industry through privatization. All this, in the final analysis, is to defend my heritage - that is, the company named after him.

The following is the full text of the article:

Defend the legacy

Michael Dell is starting a war, but the battle for what many see is a long time ago.

Although the company named after him revolutionized the PC industry, it missed the trend of smartphones and tablets and missed the wave of enterprise data centers and cloud computing networks. In a sense, Michael Dell is hoping to turn things around through this privatization transaction.

"The unparalleled pace of growth in the IT industry has not even caught the fashion and retail industries and how can we keep growing in such an industry?" Said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at Yale's School of Management. He holds a portion of Dell stock.

Michael Dell, 48, declined to be interviewed and his lawyer advised him not to accept any interviews before Dell's shareholders' meeting on Thursday. By then, Dell's shareholders will vote on whether to approve a $ 13.65 per share, a total of $ 24.4 billion of privatization offer.

However, his friends and advisors disclosed that he is trying to defend his heritage.

"He does not want companies that are named after him to be considered irrelevant," said Marius Hass, Dell's director of corporate affairs.

Encounter Icahn

Four years ago, when Haas played for Hewlett-Packard, Michael Dell invited him to dinner, hoping to dig him to Dell. During the meeting, Haas mentioned a business questionnaire that Dell dropped to 13th from its second-most important business partner. Haas recalled that Michael Dell's disappointment filled the list.

"He is very proud of his accomplishments," said Haas, "I asked him what he was going to do, and he said: 'My name hangs on the building and I will fight hard.'

However, his privatization offer was boycotted by Carl Icahn. The former corporate hunter has made a fortune through struggles with companies such as TWA, RJR Nbisco and Motorola. Icahn argues that Michael Dell's offer is below the company's real value and believes Dell should buy more than 1 billion shares at $ 14 a share and replace the entire board of directors.

Last Friday, Icahn raised its offer to raise its price to $ 15.50 to $ 18 a share. "Dell is a valuable company," he said in an interview. "The PC market is changing, but they are not going out."

Earlier this week, a large agency advisor stood on the side of Michael Dell, who said: "On the one hand, he struggled for his own benefit while letting him catch the falling knife, the risk of the former may be more Smaller. "

Michael Dell's plan is to return to the beginning of the business model - a middle-aged man back to the 19-year-old boy's way of thinking.

When he started his business, the idea was that by assembling custom computers for the business and consumer markets, buyers were free to choose the memory, hard drive, and screen parameters to make good profits. He also hopes to apply the same philosophy to the modern enterprise computing space, but this time it is selling the key components of cloud computing - network devices, servers and storage, plus the software that makes it coherent.

In the new company, the proportion of PC may be reduced. However, his plan for mobile devices is not yet clear.

Michael Dell said the plan could have an impact on short-term revenues and could weigh on stocks. That is why he is determined to privatize, hoping to restructure the entire business without the pressure of quarterly reports.

However, to  Dell in the mobile era by no means easy. "The industry as a whole will experience brutal integration," said IT manager John Chamber, Cisco veteran. "If Michael could not lead his company through the transition, it would be like a failed sport Like the team in place, the hope of success is slim. "

He added: "We are both friends, but I still try to beat him in the market."

Michael Dell grew up in Houston, his father is an orthodontist. For him, the data always means power: when he sold newspapers in high school, he aimed at people who had just married or just moved in and earned $ 18,000 in his first year, earning more than his economics teacher's income high.

The early days of Dell once became the world's largest PC maker, thanks in part to the company's keen sales of the Internet. However, now Dell's global PC market share has less than 12%, lagging behind competitors in Asia such as Lenovo, but also feel the pressure from Asus and Acer.

Michael Dell exited the company's day-to-day operations in 2004 but still serves as chairman. He believes that this estate will be safe and secure under the management of its own chosen CEO. But he returned to the company in 2007 after Michael Dell and the company paid a multi-million-dollar fine in the first instance just after Dell suffered a financial scandal.

Great challenge

A year ago, many online streaming Dell laptop battery spontaneous video, has greatly damaged the company's reputation. Not only that, all kinds of negative reports in overseas markets also make the company's reputation for after-sales service dropped significantly.

Since returning to the company, Michael Dell has spent more than $ 13 billion on several acquisitions in an attempt to revive the company's morale, including data center management software developer Quest Software and the Web company Force 10, but the success has been poor. Although it has spent billions of dollars to repurchase shares, the company's share price is only a quarter of that in 2000.

At the same time, Dell executives are profitable. Michael Dell himself made more than $ 650 million through stock options alone.

Now, thanks to the company he founded in the college dormitory, Michael Dell's worth up to 15 billion US dollars. He invests a wide range of investments, ranging from the nation's largest lawn-cutting company to the family-owned chain Applebee's. He also runs a charitable fund that invested $ 50 million this year in Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin. It was Michael Dell who dropped out of the university this year.

But for himself, the question is whether he can forever be remembered as Bill Hewlett or Dave Packard, two co-founded Hewlett-Packard companies Has gone through several generations of stormy history, still stands still. Or is he and his company only reduced to a negative teaching, people often recall that only think of: in this rapidly changing industry, not many things can be eternal?

"We're all stuck in the world we create and the hard work of changing a company is hard to imagine." Marc Benioff, Michael Dell's old friend and CEO of Salesforce.com, a cloud computing software services provider, "His name is printed on a computer, and every time you watch a movie, that name comes into view, and as a result he has become the leader of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Deep feeling. "