Michael Dell on Tuesday commented on Microsoft"s upcoming Surface tablet, a potential competitor to Dell"s own hardware, predicting that sales of Surface would be "relatively small," reports CNET.
The comment came during Dell"s second-quarter earnings conference call, where the company reported revenue of $14.48 billion, which is down 7.5 percent from Q2 2011, for a profit of $732 million, or 42 cents a share.
"I think there"s an understanding of the number of units that they"re likely to sell is a relatively small percentage. Maybe in the 1 to 2 percent range of total PC units during next year," Michael Dell responded to a question from an analyst.
Brian Gladden, Chief Financial Officer of Dell, also shared his thoughts on Surface. "[About] Microsoft entering the space -- we"ve spent time speaking to Microsoft and understanding how they"re thinking about it," he said. "There clearly are opportunities for us as Windows 8 comes through and how we differentiate our products."
Depending on the success of Microsoft"s new endeavor, Dell"s words on Surface could someday be compared to his retrospectively regrettable comments on Apple, all the way back in 1997. When asked what he would do to fix the then-struggling Apple, he told a crowd of several thousand IT executives, "What would I do? I"d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."
Source: CNET