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Dell Inc. in 2008: Can It Overtake Hewlett-Packard as the Worldwide Leader in Personal Computers?

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COMPANY BACKGROUND Dell traces its origins to 1984, when Michael Dell created PCs Limited while a student at the University of Texas at Austin. The dorm-room headquartered company sold IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock components. Dell dropped out of school in order to focus full-time on his fledgling business, after getting about $300,000 in expansion-capital from his family. In 1985, the company produced the first computer of its own design, the "Turbo PC", which sold for $795. PCs Limited advertised its systems in national computer magazines for sale directly to consumers and custom assembled each ordered unit according to a selection of options. The company grossed more than $73 million in its first year of operation. …show more content…

Nowadays it products vary from different models of laptops, notebooks, desktops and all-in-ones, printers, TVs and home theater, cameras, monitors, phones and tablets, and many others, including the technical support, services and security. Dell service and support brands include the Dell Solution Station, Dell Support Center, Dell Business Support (a commercial service-contract that provides an industry-certified technician with a lower call-volume than in normal queues), Dell Everdream Desktop Management and Your Tech Team. Dell products are sold in more than 170 countries all around the globe. Some of those include the USA, Canada, the UK, India, Australia and others. The less important country markets are Russia, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, China, Brazil, Ireland etc. Until the early 1990s, Dell operated with sales and service programs aimed at just two market segments—high-volume corporate and governmental buyers and low-volume business and individual buyers. But as sales took off in 1995-1997, these segments were subdi¬vided into finer, more homogeneous categories that by 2000 included global enterprise accounts, large and midsize companies (over 400 employees), small com¬panies (under 400 employees), health care businesses (over 400 employees), federal government agencies, state and local government agencies, educational insti¬tutions, and individual consumers. Many of these cus-tomer segments were

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