Michael Dell takes long view with 'Dell 2.0'

His first company became the world's largest maker of personal computers. Now Michael Dell says he is building a broader technology firm with similar ambitions.

Dell Technologies is the result of the private buyout of the original Dell computer firm, bolstered by the massive $67 billion deal for computer storage firm EMC and other software and services acquisitions.

Interviewed at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference Monday in Aspen, Colorado, Dell said the private model allows his firm to take a longer-term focus to grow the company.

"Right at the moment we went private, we started gaining (market) share," Dell said.

"We shifted our focus for more three-year, five-year, 10-year (plans), we invested heavily in R&D and innovations .. we stopped thinking about the short term as much."

Dell described the new firm -- which some refer to as Dell 2.0 -- as "the essential infrastructure company" for information technology which can offer an array of business services and products.

The new Dell includes EMC, which was the world's largest computer storage firm, as well as cloud computing unit VMware and a stake in the software group Pivotal.

While Dell declined to name his main competitors, he said that "none of them have the unique set of capabilities or the breadth that we have now."

He noted that Dell Technologies can be a key player in a variety of sectors because of its strengths across the board -- in data, software and hardware.

Asked about artificial intelligence competitors, Dell said, "When you have no data to put in AI, it doesn't do anything. Then you need the computing devices."

The new Dell won regulatory approval last year for the record buyout of EMC, accelerating its move into the cloud and mobile computing market.

In 1984, Michael Dell founded the personal computing maker, which struggled amid a shift into smartphones and tablets.

He won the backing in 2013 of private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners to buy out other shareholders to take the company private.

Source: AFP