1. Identify several business strategies Dell has used so far, including the strategy that made the company famous.

2. Suggest a plan to Dell executives for continuing its past successes into the future.

3. What is your opinion of the quality of Dell desktops and laptops based upon what you have observed personally and what people in your network have said?

4. How has the transformation of Dell worked out as of the present?

Chris Conroy works at a publisher of scientific journals in Washington, D.C. He first logged on to Dell Inc.’s Web site to browse personal computer offerings online. His laptop was dying quickly and the 31-year-old figured buying a PC on the Internet and getting it shipped home would take too long.

Conroy went to a consumer electronics store, which doesn’t stock any Dell computers. There, he checked out several laptops before snapping up a Hewlett-Packard Co. model. “I could get my hands on it right then, without having to worry about it being shipped,” he says.