MACINTOSH

Description

Macintosh Retail Group is feeding the voracious appetites of consumers in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. As a holding company, the group binds its operating companies together to form a retailing behemoth. With more than 900 stores (franchised and corporate), the company sells a variety of consumer products organized along three sectors; living, fashion, and automotive and telecom. Specializing in home furnishings and decorations the company living division includes retail stores in the Kwantum and Stoutenbeek chains. Stores in the fashion sector include Dolcis, Manfield, and Invito with BelCompany and Halfords rounding out its telecom and automotive sectors.

DELL
Description
Whether you spend most of your time in a cubicle or on a couch, chances are good that there's a Dell in front of you. The world's #1 direct-sale computer vendor provides a broad range of computer and entertainment products for the consumer and enterprise markets. In addition to a full line of desktop and notebook PCs, Dell offers network servers, workstations, storage systems, printers, handheld computers, LCD and plasma televisions, projectors, and Ethernet switches. The company also markets third-party software and peripherals. Dell's growing services unit provides systems integration, support, and training.

Entrepreneurial wunderkind Michael Dell pioneered the direct-sales model for computers and took the company from his dorm room to the top of the PC heap by keeping it focused on a simple formula: Eliminate the middleman and sell for less. Dell's built-to-order boxes allow for lower inventories, lower costs, and higher profit margins -- elements that leave it well armed for the PC price wars and IT spending recessions.