Michael Dell started building computers in his University of Texas dorm room in 1984 and turned that side project into one of the world’s largest technology companies. Dell’s original edge was selling directly to customers, cutting out retail markup and building PCs to order.
Dell’s business splits into two major segments. The Client Solutions Group makes laptops and desktops — XPS for premium consumers, Latitude for business, Precision for workstations, Inspiron for budget buyers, and Alienware for gamers. The Infrastructure Solutions Group handles servers (PowerEdge), storage (PowerStore, PowerScale), and networking for enterprise data centers.
The XPS 13 has been one of the most popular premium Windows laptops for years, frequently competing with Apple’s MacBook Air. Dell’s Latitude business laptops are standard corporate issue at many companies. Alienware gaming machines are known for their distinctive design and high-end specs.
Dell went private in 2013 in a $24.9 billion deal led by Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners, then went public again in 2018 through a complex tracking stock transaction. This period of private ownership let Dell make long-term investments without quarterly earnings pressure — most notably the $67 billion acquisition of EMC in 2016, which brought VMware under the Dell umbrella (VMware was later spun off and then acquired by Broadcom).
Headquartered in Round Rock, Texas, Dell generates over $90 billion in annual revenue. The company has benefited from the AI infrastructure boom, as enterprises buy Dell servers equipped with NVIDIA GPUs for AI workloads. Michael Dell remains chairman and CEO, still running the company he built from a dorm room over 40 years ago.
