Quiz Of The Week: Dell

This week Michael Dell finally succeeded in taking the company he founded private again. So we’re featuring our Dell quiz again, to celebrate.

Dell is an IT systems company, but started out as a PC maker, putting together components and trimming the margins. Our quiz traces that trajectory, to the present day. It’s one of the industry’s more interesting tales.

The road to Dell

Dell began in Michael Dell’s student dorm, where students would call for memory upgrades and custom PCs. Dell eventually decided to design, build and sell his own machines, rapidly becoming a successful enterprise, quickly listing on the stock exchange and entering the Fortune 500.

Along the way, the company has struggled to be taken seriously for its technology – but has manically acquired the best players in fields such as storage, services and networking. That activity reached fruition this week, when Michael Dell finalised the deal to leave the stock market, and gain space to become a full-strength systems and services player.

If it works, Dell could  eventually be bigger than HP or IBM.

If it doesn’t, then eventually, the venture backers will have no hesitation in stripping the company down and selling it off in parts. To be stripped back to its components would be the most ironic end for a company with Dell’s PC builder roots.

That’s the big picture. Now find out the detail

Try the quiz!

And if you like it, try some of our others…