Ireland "to capitalise" on Internet

IRELAND is set to capitalise on the Internet as more and more commerce switches online, the chief executive of Dell computers, Mr Michael Dell said yesterday. Inaugurating the company's new Irish website he said the operations in Bray and Limerick were central to Dell's success in Europe.

Mr Dell, now 33, founded the company with $1,000 (£660) when he was 19 years old, based on the idea of cutting out retailers by selling computers directly to the consumer. The firm, based in Austin, Texas, now has annual turnover of almost $8 billion profits of over $500 million, and employs some 1,640 Irish workers.

In Dublin yesterday, Mr Dell said he was particularly excited about the Internet, which he saw as a natural extension of the direct sales idea. Irish customers could now configure their own PCs component by component online and find out immediately how much it cost.

"The Internet is set to further revolutionise the way we all do business as geographical location becomes more and more irrelevant in the world of technology," he said. "I believe that Ireland with its excellent educational system, can capitalise on this market."

Pointing out that the world's population is about seven billion, and that only 150 million of these have computers, Mr Dell said there was plenty of room for the market to grow. By the year 2000, he said, the industry expected to be selling 132 million computers a year.

Also by the turn of the century, an estimated 90 per cent of computer users would have access to the Internet, he suggested, and in Ireland, "there will be 10 times as many people on the Net, in a very short space of time".

For these reasons, Dell would focus on making personal computers, with particular concentration on both sales and use of the Internet, Mr Dell added.

In the US, Dell is the number one PC manufacturer on the world wide web, with Internet sales increasing by 20 per cent each month and generating revenues of over $1 million a day, he said.

"Dell's page already attracts more than 225,000 visits per week," he added. "We now feel that the time is right to replicate this success story in Ireland."

The company's Irish sales director, Mr Tim McCarthy, said the new web site would allow customers to mix and match components online, creating their ideal PC, then click a button to find out exactly how much the system would cost, including or excluding VAT.

There would be special deals for buyers, not advertised in the newspapers and available only on the web site, to encourage use, managing director of Dell's Bray operations, Mr Philip Vanhoutte, said.

"The aim is to get everyone who wants a new PC to check our page before they buy," he added. "We will have sufficient baits and good offers in there to make it worth their while.

Mr Dell said he was pleased with the success of the company in Ireland since it opened for business six years ago.

"We hail high expectations of our Irish facilities based on feed back from other US electronic companies who were already in Ireland," he added. "To date, these expectations have been more than exceeded and all corporate goals have been met in advance of deadlines."