Dell goes back to basics and hires 500 engineers

Tooled up

By Charlie Demerjian: Monday 18 September 2006, 21:29
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DELL IS GROWING up. And, to misquote Pinocchio, it will be a real boy soon.

The firm is going to hire 500 engineers in Austin according to the Statesman, a move whose meaning should not be underestimated.

If you haven't noticed over the last 10 or so years, Dell's engineering has amounted to little more than perfecting the glue application on the back of a case badge and swapping pins on a power supply to ensure proprietariness.

Everything they engineered was done by Intel, and they passed the savings on to you. HP may have been better in every way, from spying to ignoring laws, but Dell was cheaper.

Now, with everyone tap dancing on the Dell stock value, it looks like they got the message, and are doing things to stand out.

This engineering talent could go a long way to reversing Dell's image as the largest and most boring white box vendor out there, not to mention making some great products. µ