Calling Michael Dell

Following my post yesterday, I called the Big Dell to inquire about cheap laptops. The call was somewhat askward, I think Michael expected me to say that CGI was for sale. You Texas bastard, you'll never gonna get me. So anyway. After the usual chit chat about the state of the industry and how we hope that our freaking customers will double their IT expenses for 2010, I went straight to the point.

I go, Michael, CGI doesn't mind continuing to purchase its laptops from you guys, but man you gotta work on the price. It's still awfully expensive for what you really get. I asked him to design the cheapest laptop model ever, I don't care about the specs, just bring the cost down. Dell goes, we're already making shitty products on the low-end, even the Chinese are impressed, I mean Roach dude, how low can I go?

I go, Michael, remember when you were living in your dorm building PC clones for your college buddies? He goes, sure I remember. I go, when you were a fucking student you could live with $50 a week, you'd buy Kraft Dinner at Wal-Mart and a can of Folger and you could sustain for a week. That's what I call lean. Today your grocery bill is runs what, probably in the 4-figure zone for a single week now? Not counting the booze. So you're a pretty fat bastard.

Michael, I said, you totally lost perspective of what cheap is, I guess you don't even know how to write the word anymore. Dell goes, but I have a team of cost specialists working full-time to find the cheapest components out there, I mean you can get a fucking Inspiron desktop for less than $400, what's the issue here?

I go, Michael, I'm talking to you as a friend, not a competitor. CGI is buying a freaking huge number of laptops from your company, and I need to bring this cost down by all mean. If I have to take a screwdriver myself and pop all the duplicate "Shift" keys from the keyboard to save $0.07 from each laptop purchase, I will do it. After all, who needs 2 Shift keys, do you know? And that NumLock key? Gone. Wi-Fi? Get rid of it, take $25 off. So this is what I'm talking about. Let me give you another idea. Have you ever thought of bringing EGA screens back? Call it a "classic" laptop, or whatever shitty name you like, but if you can shave $300 off the current preferred price you'll the man.

Dell goes, jee I've never thought of that, are you sure you want to go that low, I mean don't your employees will scream when they see this piece of crap on their desk? I go, sure they'll whine for a few days, they might even post their rants on the Web, but you know what? I don't give a damn. Profitable growth is about squeezing the lemon until subatomic particles of juice come out.

Dell was silent for a while, and then he said, sure we can do this. We might have to dig a local landfill for find some components, but if this is what CGI wants sure we'll do it for you. We should have lunch you and I some day you know? I see a good fit between CGI and Perot, maybe we should talk strategies over lunch ya know?

I then said to Dell that I was entering a tunnel and that my cell phone connection was bad, then I hung up. That always does the job.