Rating: 
Summary: I dont pay to be marketed to
Review: Micheal Dell comes off as a self promoting marketing blow hard and it is not worth the read. [...]
Rating: 
Summary: Fast-paced
Review: Reading this book shows you how fast a business can grow really super fast. Dell started out in his dormroom making computers for customers and now is worldwide. Dell takes you through every step of the way in his monstorous growth. He posed problems that arised from when a company grows too fast, and shows how he solved them in turn.
The book is an amazing triumph in our computer age. You get a better idea of what happened in the 1990's with computers through Dell's unique perspective.
Rating: 
Summary: Great story with practical advice!
Review: The story of Dell Computers is an enjoyable story of how an entrepreneurial young Michael Dell couldn't contain his enthusiasm for his business idea and took it all the way. Without much to guide him beyond his instincts he made some mistakes, but he admits to these and describes them so readers can learn from them as he did. Of course, far more can be learned from what he did right. One of the more noteworthy approaches he mentions is that Dell rewards success by *reducing* the responsibilities of the successful manager- an act many use as a negative disciplinary measure in other companies. The reasoning is that after a division grows from a $10 million market to $200 million, by cutting it back to $25 million, it will be easier for the manager to focus on this smaller block, understand it better, and again grow it to $200 million or more.
Rating: 
Summary: FAST-PACED AND INSIGHTFUL SKIM, BUT HINTS OF NARCISSISM
Review: Whether you're an entrepreneur, a manager, a marketer, or a passionate loyalist of the compelling and always competitive offerings from the star PC firm, this semi-memoir will let you in on the madly tight ship that's known as Dell. It's a fairly compact fluently-written book that distills Dell's lessons for business (p.s. it's NOT a biography of Michael Dell) that lends itself to some pacy in-flight reading. But thinking back, I have a couple of gripes. In recounting the company's meteoric rise from a college dorm to the multi-million dollar company in a short couple of decades, the book advocates a fanatical belief in the power of the Internet and how it is vital to every business's survival. If you don't provide access from every one of your users' desktops, you'll be gone. I find this a bit hard to digest as a categorical generalization, and I am a net evangelist myself. But I would not have expected anything different from Dell. Secondly, the tone of the author(s?) occasionally takes on a doting note, and they seem to imply that Dell veritably invented the direct selling approach. This is patently misguided. A corollary that stems from this is the novel way that Dell came up with to segment customers. Somewhat cloying, this self-absorption. Yet, in terms of good business insights, it's a fascinating read good enough to be devoured in a day or two. Recommended, especially as a business gift.
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