to sound like Investment Bankers

From Michael Dell's interactive session with students at MIT (2002).

Q) How will you incorporate your manufacturing strategy in entering the PDA market and do you have any plans to look at companies to possibly acquire?

A) Again, to enter into a new product category you don't have to acquire companies. I mean, you guys are starting to sound like Investment Bankers... (crowd bursts in to laughter)... sorry, cheap shot... but...you know.. These Investment Bankers come and say you should buy this , you should buy that... Just becasue you have $ 8.6 billion in cash, it doesn't mean you should buy things... (crowd erupts again) We have a saying in Texas "Nobody ever went broke having too much cash".

He then answers about Dell's take at the PDA market .....

What a diametrically opposite view about acquisitions !!!! And I liked his dig at the Investment Bankers :-)

This answer has its root in the previous question.

Q) It was rumored that you are interested in acquiring Legend(China's leading PC maker)... and if that is not the case, what are your plans roughly to compete with them?

A) Oh, I haven't heard that rumor before..... I didn't know they were for Sale? (crowd laughs) ...



Well, working for a S/W company that has made about a dozen purchases of Application Companies in the last two years, including a couple of multi billion purchases, and trying to fuse them all together into a next generation Application suite, this view comes as an even more contrasting one.

May be different strategies work for different companies
May be the same stragey works differently for different companies
May be the same company employs different strategies at different times
I am not sure..

but, looks like Michael Dell isn't too convinced about Investment Bankers trying to teach him strategies.

Dell's lecture and his answers weren't very mesmerising for the aura that usually surrounds a super successful businessman. It wasn't very dramatic or emotional. Infact, he hardly spoke for a couple of minutes and opened the floor for questions. But he had a good sense of humour and it showed in a few of responses. Some of his responses were too short and abrupt too.

The video can be viewed here and the text can be read here.