AP Photo/George Nikitin
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PC PRODIGY
COMPANY Dell Computer, Founder, chairman and CEO
NET WORTH $21.5 billion
AGE 34
E-MAIL michael@dell.com
BIO While other computer makers are feeling the free-PC squeeze, things just keep
getting better for Michael Dell, direct-sales sage, with a Web store ringing up
$14 million a day. Dell Computer started with $1,000 when Dell was a 19-year-old
University of Texas dropout and is doing so well these days that it's threatening
to dethrone Compaq as the No. 1 PC supplier in the U.S. Dell's U.S. market share
is 16.4%, up from about 13% in 1998--a hair shy of Compaq's 16.8%. Dell's annual
earnings have grown 40% for the past three years; while other PC giants
struggled, they jumped 58% in the second quarter of 1999, partly the result of a
deft move into more lucrative business markets (servers, workstations). On the
consumer-PC side, Dell's low-inventory, build-to-order approach to online
retailing is the industry standard; for competitors, it's a matter of do it too
or die. And it's clear they'll be playing catch-up for a while as Dell grabs more
Net turf. Last spring Dell launched gigabuys.com, a consumer-tech superstore.
Another nice touch: the debut of Ask Dudley, user-friendly online tech support
based on the popular search engine Ask Jeeves.
BEST LINE "It's easy, when things look good, to assume that you're invincible.
But that's exactly when you're weakest."
FORWARD TILT Dell's decision to offer customers a cable modem or a DSL modem
with their PC purchase--and to help them make the choice by telling them which
high-speed Internet service is available where they live--will help deliver
broadband to the masses right out of the box. As the fat-pipe market explodes,
Dell will be the go-to guy.
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