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How big an opportunity is there for Dell to leverage that supply chain advantage if HP gets out of the PC business?
It's a great opportunity for our channel partners first and foremost. It gives us a significant advantage. I am not going to give you a number. Call some of the financial analysts.
Talk about your views on the PC business.
We are committed to the PC business. We are committed to a broad range of solutions. I started the company in 1984 in my dorm room as a PC business, but in 1995 we got into the server business and now we have a broad range of solutions and services. I think that client business is as important as ever. We like that business. And we love our partners. We have been very consistent. You have seen our [channel] commitment. We have steadily grown the program. Everytime we acquire a new company, Force 10, SecureWorks, Compellent, KACE, Boomi, EqualLogic, we add to our channel program.
Talk about your feelings about the PC business at this point in time.
I've heard this term "post-PC era." And when I heard this term post-PC era, I knew I had heard that term before. I went and did a little searching. Actually you can find a press release from IBM where they are talking about the post PC era in 1999.
I have been around long enough to remember stuff like that. Around that time, the industry sold about 100 million personal computers a year. So that was the beginning of the post-PC era. Well, now it's 2011 and there is about 440 million PCs sold per year. So that means that the post-PC era has been better for the PC than whatever came before the post-PC era. If you talk to Gartner and say how many PCs are there, there's a 1.5 billion PC installed base. How many PCs are there going to be in 2014. Gartner will tell you 2 billion PCs in 2014.
How many tablets are going to be sold this year? You hear 40 million, 50 million -- pick a number. So 1.5 billion PCs, some number of tablets, but it's nowhere near the 440 million PCs that will be sold this year or the installed base.
NEXT: Dell On PCs, Smartphones And Tablets
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