San Francisco, Mar 05: SAN FRANCISCO: Dell Inc. may have split the posts of chairman and chief executive on Thursday, but the two men who will fill those jobs practically share an office already, having torn down the wall that once separated them at the no. 2 PC maker's headquarters. Kevin Rollins will add the title of chief executive while co-founder Michael Dell, who sits across from Rollins separated only by a glass partition, remains chairman.
Rollins has already long been the operational guru at Dell as he helped build it into an efficient powerhouse, selling PCs, notebook computers and servers directly over the phone or via the Internet. With $41 billion in annual sales, Dell is the no. 2 personal computer maker after Hewlett-Packard.
Three years ago, Rollins and his boss, Dell founder Michael Dell, ripped out the wall separating their offices, replaced it with a glass partition, and faced their desks toward each other. A company spokesman said that he has never seen the sliding glass door between their offices closed.
In naming the 52-year-old Brigham Young University graduate and devout Mormon as chief executive of the Round Rock, Texas-based PC behemoth, the company was formalizing what had already been the case: Dell is focused on vision, strategy and business and consumer trends while Rollins runs the show. Bureau Report