Michael Dell: Long Live The PC

Despite suspicions Dell would be moving away from the PC as it returns to private ownership, Michael Dell said today his company would continue to invest heavily in the client, from laptops to tablets, whilst telling TechWeekEurope Windows RT was a “mistake”.

Windows 8 uptake has been far from dramatic, he said, but that won’t stop Dell build up a big lineup of products based on the Microsoft operating system. During a Dell Technology Camp in Paris, Dell told TechWeek the recently released Windows 8.1 update appeared to fix many of the issues people had with the initial OS.

Meanwhile, the company will make PCs for a number of operating systems. “People are still buying PCs,” he added.

Dell: Windows 8 hasn’t taken off

“We are primarily focused on the commercial space and what is really going on right now is the move from Windows XP to Windows 7,” he added.

“We think Windows RT was a mistake and we are all done with Windows RT.

“We don’t see large-scale adoption of Windows 8 but there is no Windows cycle over the last 20 years where organisations immediately adopted. So we’re where we expected to be.”

Dell also stressed the company was working on devices to support a host of other operating systems, including Android and Ubuntu.

He also talked about life after going private, following a long tussle with activist investor Carl Icahn. A chief reason for going private was to think about the long term, something that isn’t easy to do when shareholders are breathing down executives necks, the CEO said.

“In the US there is an affliction of short-term thinking,” Dell said. “What we care about is three, five, ten years from now.” He laid out five areas the company was to invest heavily in: end to end solutions, emerging markets, sales growth, clients and its own internal systems to make it easier to do business with Dell.”

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