And a lot has happened on Michael Dell's watch. He founded the company and led it to $18 billion
in annual sales, from one employee to 24,000, from operations in one country to 33 countries. He
took Dell public and made it the single most successful stock in the history of the Nasdaq. A
$100 investment in Dell stock at the 1988 initial public offering is worth more than $56,000
today--three-quarters of that increase coming last year alone. So if we decide to make the
somewhat subjective declaration that Michael Dell is the number-one CEO in America, please humor
us.
在邁克爾.戴爾的在任期間發(fā)生過(guò)很多事情。他創(chuàng)建了公司，使它的年銷(xiāo)售額達(dá)到18億美元，從一個(gè)雇員
發(fā)展到24000個(gè)雇員，業(yè)務(wù)范圍從一個(gè)國(guó)家擴(kuò)展到33個(gè)國(guó)家。他使戴爾上市，并且使之成為納斯達(dá)克歷史上最
成功的股票。在1988年最初上市時(shí)僅投資100美元的戴爾股票今天價(jià)值56000美元--僅在去年就增長(zhǎng)了其中的四
分之三。因此如果我們決定帶點(diǎn)主觀地宣布邁克爾.戴爾是美國(guó)第一的CEO，這是在哄我們。
The Dell saga is well known. The son of a doctor and a stockbroker, he was raised in a
business-savvy home in Houston. After an extraordinary success selling subscriptions to the
Houston Chronicle (he was able to buy himself a new BMW while still in high school), young Dell
discovered and fell in love with computers. He bought an Apple II to celebrate his 15th
birthday, and took it apart. Soon he switched to IBM PCs. He took those apart, too, and came to
the conclusion that Big Blue was charging $3,000 for around $700 worth of disk drives,
motherboards, and RAM chips. He went into business. Dell souped up IBM's own computers for less
than IBM was charging to do the same thing. He took advantage of IBM distribution anomalies to
buy PC overstocks below cost from IBM dealers. He upgraded those computers and sold them in
direct competition with the very dealers they came from--first from a dorm room at the
University of Texas in Austin and then, by the end of his freshman and only year of college,
from an off-campus condominium.
戴爾的傳奇故事是很出名的。作為一個(gè)醫(yī)生和股票經(jīng)紀(jì)人的兒子，他成長(zhǎng)在休斯頓的一個(gè)精明的商業(yè)家庭
。在成功地把訂單賣(mài)給休斯頓新聞（Houston Chronicle）后（在高中的時(shí)候他就能夠給自己買(mǎi)一輛新的寶馬
汽車(chē)了），年輕的戴爾發(fā)現(xiàn)并愛(ài)上了計(jì)算機(jī)。他買(mǎi)了一臺(tái)蘋(píng)果II慶祝他的15歲生日，并把它拆開(kāi)了。不久他換
成了IBM PC。他也把它們拆開(kāi)了，并且得出結(jié)論：藍(lán)色巨人把價(jià)值約700美元的磁盤(pán)驅(qū)動(dòng)器、主板和隨機(jī)存儲(chǔ)
器芯片賣(mài)到3000美元。他開(kāi)始從事商業(yè)。戴爾改進(jìn)了IBM自己的計(jì)算機(jī)，能夠以低于IBM的收費(fèi)做相同的事。他
利用IBM銷(xiāo)售的不合理性以低于IBM經(jīng)銷(xiāo)商的價(jià)格購(gòu)買(mǎi)庫(kù)存過(guò)剩的PC。他升級(jí)了這些計(jì)算機(jī)，然后銷(xiāo)售它們，直
接和其進(jìn)貨的正式銷(xiāo)售商競(jìng)爭(zhēng)--這項(xiàng)事業(yè)開(kāi)始是在奧斯汀的得克薩斯大學(xué)的宿舍里，然后等到他大學(xué)一年級(jí)結(jié)
束時(shí)，已搬到了校園外的公寓里。
There were no Dell stores or dealers. Right from the start, the PCs were sold direct to
customers who called Dell on the phone. Sales were $50,000 to $80,000 per month even before Dell
moved the operation out of the condo, incorporated (this was 1984; he did business for a time as
PC's Limited), and started making his own computers. The company was profitable in its very
first quarter, and has been profitable all but one quarter ever since.
戴爾并沒(méi)有商店或經(jīng)銷(xiāo)商。從一開(kāi)始起，PC都是直接銷(xiāo)售給打電話給戴爾的客戶。即使在戴爾把業(yè)務(wù)搬出
公寓、組建公司（那是在1984年，他成立了PC' Limited經(jīng)營(yíng)了一段時(shí)間）并開(kāi)始制造他自己的計(jì)算機(jī)前，每
月的銷(xiāo)售額就到了50000到80000美元。在公司的前四分之一階段就盈利了，除前四分之一階段外，從此一直都
在盈利。
It's a great story, sure, but the personal-computer industry was built on companies that
started fast and were headed by college dropouts. The real miracle of Dell Computer is not that
the company started so well but that it has endured. With the exceptions of Compaq and IBM, most
of Dell's competitors from 1984 are no longer in business. The only stories even remotely
comparable to Dell's come from Bill Gates at Microsoft and Ted Waitt at Gateway. The miracle of
Michael Dell is not that he started an important PC company at age 19, but that he is still
running it today and happens to be the richest man in Texas.
這是一個(gè)偉大的奇跡，但事實(shí)上個(gè)人計(jì)算機(jī)產(chǎn)業(yè)是靠一些發(fā)展很快而且由大學(xué)退學(xué)學(xué)生領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的公司而建立
的。戴爾計(jì)算機(jī)的真實(shí)奇跡不在于它開(kāi)始得非常好，而在于它能持久。除了康柏和IBM，從1984年起大多數(shù)戴
爾的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手都退出了市場(chǎng)。還能和戴爾間接進(jìn)行比較的故事來(lái)自微軟的比爾·蓋茨和Gateway的Ted Waitt。
邁克爾·戴爾的奇跡不在于他在19歲創(chuàng)建了一個(gè)重要的PC公司，而在于他在今天仍然在經(jīng)營(yíng)這個(gè)公司，而且成
為得克薩斯最富的人。
（未完待續(xù)）
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