Michael Dell on the Middle East and NASDAQ

Q. I would like to start by asking you about the global economy. Is the recession behind us?

A. The American economy is clearly improving and, if we can get the rest of the world's economies going in some kind of synchronization, then I think that what we will see will be a full-scale recovery. The United States has now had a couple of quarters of positive signs and positive improvements, and that's very encouraging.

Q. What do you think about the Internet regions in the Arab world, like Dubai Internet City?

A. I wouldn't call myself an expert, so I don't know enough to comment on it. I'll have to pass on that one.

Q. Is the Middle East region important for Dell?

A. It is increasingly important for the company. It's a source of a lot of new growth for us and holds a vast amount of opportunities.

Technological tools can bring about a great change in education and advance the societies in a meaningful way. We have a big role to play there in contributing to progress.

Q. Why has Dell moved from purely IT products to consumer electronics? Does this represent a risk for you?

A. We remain, fundamentally, a computer company. Of course, there are a lot of things that relate to computers that are consumed by consumers.

As more content goes digital - whether it's music or videos or printing - we need to look at that. So, yes, we're expanding our business pretty dramatically. But the vast majority of our business is to businesses and governments, as opposed to consumers.

Q. Will consumer electronics become a more important part of your business in the future?

A. It's growing, but our business portion is growing very nicely, too. We're growing across the board.

Q. Are you seeing a repeat of the IT bubble we had in 2000? The Nasdaq has been increasing quite dramatically over the last few months. Do you think this rise is justified?

A. That's a good question. Whenever there are new things, whether it's in genomics or nanotechnology or whatever, people don't quite know what it's going to mean.

There are radical swings in terms of the evaluation of those things. Our business isn't really subjected to those as much. Our business is more valued on the fundamentals.

Q. But are the stock market evaluations justified?

A. I don't really worry about that. We don't sell stocks, we don't buy stocks. We're running a company. Our job is not to worry about the stock market. You need to go talk to the financial guys.

Q. Are you looking to expand by making acquisitions?

A. No, we'd like to grow organically, and we'll continue to grow organically.

Q. So you're not looking at acquisitions anywhere in the world?

A. We haven't really had acquisitions. We don't plan on growing by acquisitions.