Questions 86 to 90 are based on the following passage： Dell Does Domination Over the years I’ve spent a fair amount of time hanging out with Michael Dell，and what I noticed during my latest visit with him in Austin is how things have changed．Yes，he is still unflappable．And yes，he greets me in his new glossy offices with the same Stamford Wife-like grin he has always had．But he appears thinner now，as if he’s lost baby fat．While he’s still slow-moving，as if he’s conserving energy，he now cuts to the quick in conversation．And when he zeroes in on the point he wants to make，when he reiterates why Dell Computer is in a better position than any other PC maker in the world，you realize that the 36-year-old has lost what was once one of his greatest advantages：no one underestimate ates him anymore． Instead，Michael Dell looms over the PC landscape like a giant，casting a shadow over all his unfortunate com petitors．This is a terrible time in a difficult business．PC sales were down for the first time last year．Dell’s sales will be down，too，also for the first time．Yet even with that，even with recession ，even with the threat of a Hewlett-Packard ／Com paq Goliath，this is the only PC maker you can count on to grow and grow and grow．Almost single-handedly，Dell is forcing this industry to consolidate．Could this mean“game over”in the PC biz？“Game over？”he looks back at me incredulously．“No way．We only have 14％ global market share．” The Dellites may not admit to“game over”aspirations，but clearly they are thinking of a kind of domination never seen before among PC makers．“We think 40％market share is possible，”says Dell’s No．2，Kevin Rollins．That’s a remarkable goal；what’s more remarkable is that it really is attainable．Don’t look for Dell to hit that kind of number anytime soon．Rather，the company’s growth will come from grinding out gains on several existing fronts，while shrewdly expanding into new target markets． The reason is simple：there’s no better way to make，sell，and deliver PCs than the way Dell does it，and nobody executes that model better than Dell．By now most business people can recite the basic tenets of Dell’s direct-sales model．Dell machines are made to order and delivered directly to the customer．There is no middleman．The customer gets the exact machine he wants cheaper than he can get it from the competition．The company gets paid by the customer weeks before it pays suppliers．Given all that，the company that famously started in Austin out of a University of Texas dorm room now dominates the northern side of this city the way giant steelworks once lorded over old mill towns．Dell has some 24 facilities in and near Austin and employs more than 18，000 local workers．Dell did over ＄30billion in sales in 2000，ranking 48th on the FORTUNE 500，ahead of names like Walt Disney，and Du Pont．Michael is the richest man under 40 in the world，worth ＄16 billion． Two facts show how well the Dell model is working，even in tough times：Dell is on track to earn over ＄1.7 billion in 2001，taking almost every single dollar of profit among makers of Windows-based PCs．And Dell is gaining market share．That’s not true for any other major PC maker． Quite the contrary．The others are going splat for the same reason that Dell is succeeding：commoditization．The desktop PC has become a commodity．That’s great for consumers，who get standardized，easy-to-use，cheap PCs． Commoditization has been going on in the industry for years．Dell，as master of the direct model，spent most of the 1990s operating in techno-Nirvana．The PC market was growing by 15％-plus per year．For its quarter ended January 2000，Dell did a record ＄6．8 billion in sales，up 31％ from the previous year’s quarter．In a sign of things to come，sales growth slowed later in 2000．Then the growth disappeared in 2001． The economic slowdown was bad news for everyone，but Michael Dell and Kevin Rollins，who is increasingly his equal partner in running this business，made sure it was terrible news for Dell’s com petitors．In late 2000they decided to slash prices．“It was advantageous for us，actually，because in periods of slow demand component prices drop，and， unlike our competition，we can pass those savings on immediately to customers，”explains Rollins，a fine violinist who grew up in a hard-charging Utah family—his father was an engineering professor at Brigham Young—and came to Dell from the Bain consulting firm ．Dell could make more money selling more computers at lower prices than it could selling fewer computers at higher prices．The low prices wreaked havoc on competitors．Compaq，HP，and Gateway all lost market share for the 12 months that ended Sept．30，2001，while Dell’s share of the U．S．market climbed 31％． _____was once one of Dell’s greatest advantages．