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Dell Reflects on 25 Years of PCs
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Dell, founder of the world's largest computer company, took a few minutes with CNet News.com to reflect on the past 25 years and offer a few personal notes. While Dell certainly has an impressive business history, he still thinks the best is yet to come. From the article: 'Michael Dell started off using PCs to create homework shortcuts, the way many young people at the time discovered the new devices. Few people, including Dell's parents, realized exactly how large the potential was for the personal computer. More than 20 years after he founded PC's Limited, he admits his parents never quite embraced his decision to leave the University of Texas at Austin to start the company that would eventually bear his name and record $56 billion in revenue during its last fiscal year.'"
Fun as it is to complain that xyz people have superfast computers that they'll never use, realize this: computers work on an economy of scale. If less people bought high end computers: - Computer technology would not update as fast - High end computers would cost several times more So, the fact that they use these
His skill was in streamlining a business model. AFAIK he hasn't done anything directly to improve computers. He helped lower the cost to consumers. He deserves a lot of business credit, but I'm not sure he deserves any geek cred. He's already been written up in BusinessWeek. I don't think he warrants a /. article.
Developers: We can use your help.
Who did well include Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. I think it's strange how 20-30 years ago, college dropouts could do so well. Now, it's almost expected to have a Bachelor's degree or even a Master's for some occupations.
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I don't even have an opinion as to the goodness or not about the utilization... don't necessarily care people aren't using more than 5% of their machine -- but it's more a reflection of the effectiveness of the marketing of computers than their necessity and usefulness. Owning a machine like Dell's doesn't suggest a need.
Two things.
First, people like to overcompensate for things they could never use but for status. Why buy a car that can go 150mph when its illegal and unfeasible to drive it at that speed?
Secondly, computers age quite fast. If you buy a computer, it is reasonable to overcompensate because in 2-3 years an average computer will be out of date and underpowered. The top of the line computer today will be the below average in 5 years but you still can get some life out of it.
Remember 640K ought to be enough for anyone.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
If I were to guess, he probably hasn't spent more than $100 million of that.
Yeah, I bet he only uses one of them at a time! And he probably doesn't even go over 70mph!
He totally doesn't use any more than 10,000 square feet, I bet!
Point: welcome to the gratuitous world of the absurdly wealthy.
It is through the streamlining of purchasing computers that led to more standardization across components. It also led to innovations in cooling and airflow, integration, and ease of use. They have to find new ways to keep people coming back. This means more features, easier access to the features, and easier use. This just doesn't happen. The market has to be there or be invented.
While Mr. Dell might not have been personally in the design process of every machine I bet he did have some influence over early machines and to this day the ideas he suggest do have weight if not merit. Too many people discount Dell, Gates, and others simply because they don't like the product or just have some inate personality problem - especially against people who did well.
Not everyone can do this, and obviously not as well as he did. Dell is very much his company just like Jobs is Apple. You cannot separate the two and have the same thing. Both could go off and do something else but its their drive and initiative that led their respective companies to success.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Well, that isn't quite right. Regular 32-bit processes that aren't aware of PAE can still make use of 3GB *each*. So you could have 10 different regular apps each using 2GB of RAM without paging to disk.
Also, XP should be able to make perfectly good use of that RAM for disk cache, which could provide a substantial benefit to all processes.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I don't even have an opinion as to the goodness or not about the utilization... don't necessarily care people aren't using more than 5% of their machine -- but it's more a reflection of the effectiveness of the marketing of computers than their necessity and usefulness. Owning a machine like Dell's doesn't suggest a need.
I'm not really sure I see your point.
First, Mr. Dell did not pay retail for this machine-- in fact in all likelihood the company owns it, not him. I would also say it doesn't look good for the CEO of a computer manufacturer NOT to use the absolute best his company has to offer. It demonstrates success as well as pride. Perhaps your criticism would be valid if we were talking about Paris Hilton or Al Pacino or even your dad having a similar rig so they could email and IM... But we're not.
Finally-- yes, there are a lot of people who have setups that are pure overkill. But then there are many who find a way to push these machines to the limit and still feel they aren't enough. Dell's machine (as well as a brand new Quad Mac Pro) would still take time to render video, for example-- and more so to do complicated effects on HD. A utilitarian machine from five or six years ago would choke on complex video and lag when importing a CD.
Had I been a Billionaire I would've been optimistic about the future too.
Has anyone ever noticed how the PC industry is not like other industries - eg cell phones which are all fragmented and incompatable and the user is mostly locked out from the hardware, or even laptops - try buying a laptop case and building your own at home. Try taking a tire off a chevy and putting it on a ford, or the breaks, or even the engine.
The PC industry is the way it is because IBM just assumed they could patent the interfaces - when they couldn't. When people started to copy them, billions and billions of dollars worth of lawsuits started to fly all over the place. IBM against Compaq, Intel aganst AMD - inspite of great effort and costs, they were given no rights to impose patents over the interface. Maybe this was a failure for IBM and Intel, but it created a nuclear explosion of business, commerce, opportunity, and R&D for the rest of us.
The moral of the story is that patnets do not help R&D and do not help finance R&D, they help lock out competition, and force the industry to fragment and center around a licensing model (which is good for lawyers and bad for engineers) instead of a service model (which is good for engineers, but bad for monopolies).
First, people like to overcompensate for things they could never use but for status. Why buy a car that can go 150mph when its illegal and unfeasible to drive it at that speed?
Illegal? Sure, on public roads. Doesn't stop people from doing it. I've been to 150 MPH plenty of times on the interstate and on long, straight, clear highways. And there are plenty of race courses where you can take your car to stretch its legs, legally.
Furthermore, a car that can do 150 MPH generally has a lot more power than one that struggles to break 100, and it will thus accelerate much faster (at all speeds.) You might never get into a race in your life, but you might could use that extra acceleration when executing a tricky merge into heavy traffic.
In conclusion, don't jump to the conclusion that every time someone buys something that you deem "excessive", that it's for the purpose of status or to show off. You are just into different things than other people are. When asked what a car is good for, you might say "getting from point A to point B". To me, the best part is the trip, not the destination.