Just how skilled Michael Dell was when it came to hardware was difficult to judge. At least from Ethan's perspective, the growth value for hardware in his system was only an A, impressive, but not quite at the level of a once in a generation genius.
His talent in business, however, was unquestionably the most outstanding among his generation. It was off the charts.
In many ways, Dell and Jobs were remarkably alike. Even their intense desire to maintain control over their companies was almost identical.
In just four years, he had grown his business from a tiny operation in a college dormitory into a publicly listed company.
Later, after Dell had become one of the world's largest PC manufacturers, Michael Dell took the company private again in 2013, bringing Dell back under his personal control.
Generally speaking, taking a large publicly traded company private wasn't necessarily considered a good move, but Dell had never been someone who followed convention.
After reclaiming Dell, he successfully transformed the company and quickly stabilized its continually shrinking market share.
It was no exaggeration to say that Michael Dell's relationship with Dell was much like Steve Jobs' relationship with Apple.
The company hadn't made him. He had made Dell into an industry powerhouse.
….
Round Rock, Texas.
PC's Limited, the company that would one day become Dell.
"Hello, Mr. Hayes."
Compared with Jobs, Dell brought a much younger energy to the table. He had the confidence, ambition, and constant drive of someone who was still hungry to prove himself and push boundaries.
Dell had barely turned twenty-one, having celebrated his birthday just days before.
Ethan was surprised to find that his office was much simpler than he had imagined. Instead, it looked more like a medium-sized assembly workshop.
Motherboards and monitors were stacked neatly across the workbenches, yet the place didn't feel cluttered.
Cardboard boxes awaiting shipment were lined up in orderly rows, and more than half of them contained the Turbo PC model that Dell had developed himself.
Employees busied themselves with their respective tasks, assembling new PCs, repairing damaged components, and, of course, sales representatives dedicated to contacting customers over the phone.
Those salespeople were the core strength of PC's Limited, and the key reason they could compete head-on with the major PC manufacturers.
"Yes, sir, don't worry. A 20MB hard drive is absolutely enough to handle everything you need..."
The salesperson held the telephone receiver against his shoulder, so both hands remained free, quickly writing down the customer's requirements on an order form.
"Memory? We can upgrade it to 512KB..."
Although this model required a great deal of manpower, it also allowed them to bypass distributors and deal directly with customers one on one.
Ethan looked towards the sales department with great interest.
"Michael, your company's style is quite different from what I imagined."
Not long ago, he had visited Jobs' startup, a textbook example of Silicon Valley's elite culture. Now, returning so suddenly to such a plain and practical environment felt strangely unfamiliar.
"No, no, Ethan. This is precisely our advantage."
Dell casually accepted a document from an employee, glanced over it, signed his name, and led Ethan's group into a small private office.
"Ethan, PC's Limited can offer customers computers with the same specifications for nearly thirty percent less than our competitors. Do you know what that represents?"
"It means we don't have to take on the risk of holding finished inventory. We only build machines after receiving orders, and… we get interest-free cash flow."
Jim, whose SGI specialized in this line of business, immediately grasped the concept and recognized the tremendous commercial potential hidden within it.
There was an unavoidable time gap between receiving payment from customers and purchasing the necessary components. In a sense, that meant customers were providing Dell with an interest-free loan.
"Exactly! We do business with our customers' money while shifting the risk away from our company."
"And more than that, this model also allows new technologies to reach the market in the shortest possible time."
Ethan's attention was naturally focused on MicroNova's first graphics card, the NovaRadeon.
If Dell was willing, they could even directly market gaming PCs equipped with the graphics card to customers who specifically needed them. In a way, this was the earliest and most efficient form of customer profiling through big data.
Ethan nodded slightly.
Michael's instincts for business were second to none, even Jobs couldn't match him in that regard.
"Michael, I think there's an opportunity for us to work together…"
"I know."
Before Ethan could finish, Michael smiled as though he had been waiting for him to bring it up.
"You want a foothold in the consumer PC market, don't you? Say no more. I'm in."
"..."
Ethan was momentarily speechless at Michael's enthusiasm.
"You're that easy to persuade?"
Rather than answering directly, Michael began counting on his fingers as if listing treasured possessions.
"SGI, NeXT, PC's Limited, MicroNova, and... GAMENOVA."
"Let's show IBM what the new era really looks like."
Such an alliance already covered everything, from software to hardware, from the ultra-high end market all the way down to the mass consumer market.
"Your information network is surprisingly efficient..."
Ethan smiled.
"That's right. I want to promote...."
"MicroNova's standalone graphics cards, right?"
Michael nodded before reaching into a drawer and pulling out a circuit board.
To be precise, it was an 8-bit ISA graphics card, the IBM Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) released in 1981.
"...Exactly. But besides that, there's something else I hope to standardize and popularize."
Ethan took out the Logitech C7 from his bag.
"A mouse."
"Huh, I understand."
"But whether it's a mouse or a graphics card, the first step in selling either one is creating demand."
Although Dell also received orders that included mice, the quantities weren't particularly high.
After all, both Windows 1.0 and the Macintosh graphical operating system were still rather immature, so combined with the unnecessary performance overhead they imposed on computers, their adoption rates remained low.
That left the mouse in a rather awkward position.
"Michael, creating demand happens to be GAMENOVA's specialty."
Ethan shook Michael's hand with a bright smile.
Demand? What could create demand faster than video games?
…..
GAMENOVA Headquarters, California.
Will was completely absorbed in studying the advanced Nova programming language documentation intended for professional developers.
It was a language built around object-oriented programming, somewhat similar to Objective-C, which had been developed based on the C programming language, except it took the concept even further.
"No wonder developing on the NovaBox is so enjoyable, this language is a work of art."
"I honestly want to rewrite the entirety of SimCity in Nova right now."
"Don't rush, Will."
Sitting beside him, Ethan carefully examined SimCity's source code.
"I've prepared two small projects for you to practice on first."
Turning around, Ethan pulled out a document.
Looking at the printed title, Will unconsciously read it aloud.
"Minesweeper... and... Spider Solitaire?"