Dell tackles legendary advice to jobs, Windows 8

Dell's namesake CEO Michael Dell at the Web 2.0 Summit touched on his infamous quote from 1997 where he had said he in Steve Jobs' position would have closed Apple and given money back to shareholders. When asked about it, Dell claimed that the quote was "misstated" and that he would never have entertained the idea of running Apple himself. While he didn't outright deny the armchair advice, he noted that his company, like Apple was to Jobs, was the only thing that mattered.

"I am the CEO of Dell," he said. "I don't think about being the CEO of any other company. I'm not a CEO for hire."

He added that Jobs was a friend and would be missed. "I met Steve when I was 16 years old... at an Apple user group meeting in Texas," Dell said.

The executive nonetheless got defensive over the reversal of fortune during Jobs' second tenure at Apple. Stock at Dell was up 16,000 percent since the company was founded, he said. Apple's foresight on mobile and ultimate return to form in computers have given it a total company value far larger than Dell, which has never had success outside of its business services and its now struggling core computer business.

Focusing on the future, he confirmed that Dell planned to mostly follow Microsoft's vision for Windows 8. While not every computer would go to touch based on cost, a "pretty high percentage" of Dell's PCs would support the input, he said. The PC builder sidestepped concerns of ergonomics from trying to touch an upright display, but was convinced "touch is going to be a huge deal."

According with the newfound swing back towards Microsoft, he admitted that Android had largely failed in tablets and was "excited" with what Windows 8 would bring. Despite having the Streak tablets in the market, he saw Apple as effectively being untouched what Google or others were managing. Most of these companies are shipping just a few hundred thousand tablets a quarter and have often had to shrink shipments after their presumptions about Android were shot down.

"If you look at the tablet market, you have to say right now it's an iPad market," Dell said. "The Android stuff has not done fantastically well... I think I'm being fair."

By Electronista Staff