Monday, December 22, 2003

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Dell scorns high-tech purity, taps technology of others

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Dell scorns high-tech purity, taps technology of others: "Michael Dell, who founded his Fortune 500 company out of his University of Texas dorm room in 1984, doesn't mince words when the topic of innovation comes up.
'If you invent something that no one wants to buy, I don't care,' he said.
Dell doesn't mind slapping his own brand on other people's products. In fact, roughly 60 percent of Dell's offerings are made by someone else, he said.
The company's printers, for instance, come from Lexmark. Dell's online-music store is a rebranded version of the Musicmatch service. And the Dell Axim handheld computer is manufactured by a Taiwanese company named Wistron.
'We didn't grow to be a $40 billion company in 19 years by trying to do everything ourselves,' said Dell's 38-year-old chairman and chief executive. 'I don't want to reinvent things I can get from someone else.' "

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