"DUDE, YOU'RE GETTING A DELL, NOT A MEDICAL LICENSE!"-Why I admire MICHAEL DELL's career turn in the mid-1980s

We all know certain Computer Companies begin

IN A GARAGE.

HEWLETT PACKARD GARAGE

Apple Garage where the APPLE I was assembled

Right?

Not all of them.

Some began as a multi-collaboration like a majority of 

TAIWANESE MOTHERBOARD COMPANIES like

ASUS, ACER, GIGABYTE, etc.

While others begin at a COLLEGE DORM ROOM

That's right.

That's how the Computer Company DELL got it's start.

You see, MICHEAL DELL, 

Was studying in PRE-MED at the UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS per his parents' wishes.

MICHAEL DELL's aspirations were in the BUSINESS SECTOR in a similar path his late mother LORRAINE DELL took as she was a stockbroker

However, DELL's mother LORRAINE

And his father ALEXANDER

They both wanted MICHAEL to study PRE-MED and become a DOCTOR.

So to appease his parents, he enrolled as a PRE-MED student at the 

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS at AUSTIN in the early 1980s.

But he wasn't liking his studies at all.

So, in his spare time when not taking notes or taking tests,

He set up a PC-Upgrade Business at his COLLEGE DORM where he took orders from his fellow students(and others in the AUSTIN, TEXAS area).

And he made a WISE CHOICE to choose the PC ARCHITECTURE

As that made UPGRADE KITS all the more accessible due to the PC's 

OFF-THE-SHELF approach with it's expansion slots

And it was not just the IBM PCs but also the clones too.

All from room 2713 of his dorm room

at DOBIE CENTER.

By January 1984, MICHAEL recognized that selling PCs directly to consumers would cut down costs compared to traditional retailers.

So he dropped out of UNIVERSITY, much to his parents CHAGRIN,

Applied for a vendor's license to bid on GOVERNMENT COMPUTER CONTRACTS, won those contracts easily due to him having zero retail store overhead, 

And the rest types for itself....

He registered the name PCs LIMITED, though eventually changed it to his family name 

One of his first computers to sell through his business was the TURBO PC

So, how did DELL's business work?

It was through direct sales. AKA BUILD-TO-ORDER.

All the customer had to do was to call the company to make the order through phone

Then after the order was made, the Company would send the order to manufacturing to assemble the computer with the CUSTOMER's exact specifications

Another strategy was JUST-IN-TIME for the SUPPLY CHAINS where DELL worked with LOCAL COMPONENT SUPPLIERS to get the parts delivered rapidly to the manufacturing facilities.

This ensured that DELL would collect the money from the consumer which would then be paid over to the suppliers.

After the computer's finished assembly, they're delivered to the Customer

This strategy is to allow the computers to be sold to the consumer at a much lower price while at the same time, also prevents the building up of unsold inventory which can be a problem for other companies.

In the later years, DELL emerged as one of the largest manufacturers of Computers that are used by many people today.

Not my Dell Dimension.

The one above belonged to BILLY COORE of THE NOSTALGIA MALL

My family, when it comes to LAPTOPS, is primarily a DELL family.

No lie.

Here's my DAD using his DELL XPS laptop while my previous Cat PEACH tries to use the hot air from the cooling fans to lull herself to sleep.

I don't have photos of my mom using her Dell Inspiron Laptop but I do have this photo of me from 2011 using her DELL LAPTOP during a vacation

Later on in 2022,
I was seriously considering getting a DELL ALIENWARE AURORA R11 desktop

to replace my MSI LAPTOP for the tail end of my COLLEGE STUDIES in 2022 but at the time, I couldn't justify it's price, nor the reviews so I instead decided to Build my own machines.

But on July 14 2025, I did buy a DELL INSPIRON RYZEN 7 LAPTOP

That laptop you see in the photo above is what I use to type these blogposts.

I guess parts of this blogpost don't really give you an idea about why I like MICHAEL DELL's career turn from being a MEDICAL STUDENT to a COMPUTER MANUFACTURER.....

But hey, I like inspiration stories.