John Moore (page 2 of 2)

The strategy enables us to take market share profitably and continue growing two-to-three times faster than the market, which we also intend to continue.

5. How do you plan to develop your Middle East marketing base? And which countries are the most IT friendly?

Dell continues to invest in the training and development of our partners across the region - we are finding significant opportunities in all countries across the Middle East. Examples our recent investments include the introduction of the Dell Authorised Service Partner (DASP) programme, and a similar certification programme focused Sales and Marketing for our partners, and on-going development of our Extranet solution which enables partners to gain access to a wide range of information essential to day-to-day business

We continue to work very closely with our carefully selected partners to align service capabilities and to deliver exceptional products and services to our Customers. Whilst we continue to focus on our entire product range, we are seeing exceptional demand for our Notebooks and Enterprise Products (Servers and Storage). Our underlying growth in the region continues to be strong, and on top of this we have also won some major projects in various countries - more details of these may be released in due course.


6. What does Dell plan to offer to visitors at Gitex in terms of new products?

Latest products on display at Gitex include ;

• Optiplex GX240 Desktop - the latest Intel Pentium 4 product which is now the mainstream corporate desktop

• Precision 340 - the latest Intel Pentium 4 workstation

• Precision 530 - the latest Intel Xeon based workstation

• Precision 730 - the latest Intel Itanium based workstation

• Latitude C810 - currently our most powerful 'desktop replacement' notebook

• Latitude C400 - due to be launched in November this will be the mobile executives power notebook in an ultra-light form factor

• PowerEdge 7150 - our latest Intel Itanium based quad processor server

• PowerEdge 500SC - our latest entry level Intel Pentium III server - a true server designed from the 'bottom up', but at desktop prices!

• Also being displayed at Gitex will be our TrueMobile wireless networking solution, our range of Optiplex desktops and Latitude Notebooks. Together with a wide range of rack mounted server and storage solutions.

7. Do you think that the PC has become a commodity item like a washing machine? And if not, why not?

As technology continues to shift, people are keen to invest in the new technologies available. Dells strategy has always been to drive commoditisation and as the low cost provider, we believe that whilst the PC will not become a commodity, we would like to make buying a computer as easy as possible within the market.

In today's market, computers are available via resellers, mail order or directly from the manufacturer. The Internet and e-commerce has accelerated the number of computers people own. Just like buying a commodity, Dell continues to look for ways to make doing business with us as simple as possible.

8. Do you think Dell will come out of the current IT recession stronger than when it went in? And who will be the winners and losers in the sector?

We have our most intense focus on maintaining and enhancing our structural competitive advantage. Dell continues to deliver exceptional value and service to our Customers to meet their needs. We believe that in difficult times, the strongest player with the highest quality products and excellent support will come through in a good position. We believe that our robust business model provides us with a sound structure on which to continue to build our businesses in difficult times.