IT Forum: Dell outlines Web strategy for revolutionaries

Speaking at the European IT Forum in Paris on Monday, Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Computer, outlined the a three-pronged strategy for Web revolutionaries.

"The key point to remember is the Internet will be your business... if your business is not enabled today by information, and cannot be improved by your customers having better access to information, then you already have a problem."

Dell outlined "three key rules that Internet revolutionaries should live by": velocity or speed, efficiency and customer experience. "Think of the Internet as a weapon sitting there on the table. Either you are going to pick it up or your competitor is going to pick it up... Will you be a company who is victimised by this, or will you be the aggressor?"

Web companies have to be better than bricks-and-mortar rivals, Dell said. "This is more than selling products online... you've got to find a way to do things with the information that couldn't be done in the physical world."

On efficiency Dell stressed the importance of information to customers. "Several years ago we recognised that our customers would want to have access to the very same systems that we use internally so we built them to be used either internally or externally. This allows us to maintain a cost structure that is around half that of our competitors'."

In the questions that followed his presentation, Dell returned to a popular theme, debunking the theory that the PC is dead. "We're happy to take the market share" of any rivals that want to withdraw from the market, Dell joked.

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