Dell is responsible for world peace

THE GUARDIAN today publishes an extract from a book by Thomas Friedman which makes the remarkable claim that digital technology - and specifically the Dell Corporation - is helping to ensure there is world peace.

Friedman follows on from an earlier thesis that no two countries which ever have a McDonald's burger bar ever fight a war.

He illustrates his argument by talking about a Dell Inspiron notebook he bought. Dell has told Friedman more about the supply chain than it ever tells anyone else. He gives a breakdown of what the components are, who makes them, and where they come from.

This is interesting in its own right to anyone in the IT business.

His thesis appears to be that because the Intel chip is packaged in Puerto Rico, the screen made in Korea or Taiwan, and the memory made in Korea or Taiwan and everything made somewhere else globally, that ensures world peace. "Tongue slightly in cheek," he proffers the Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention. That, he says, is that just in time global supply chains "are an even greater restraint on geopolitcal adventurism than the more general rising standard of living that McDonald's symbolised".

People held together by the same global supply chain "don't want to fight old time wars any more". So Mikey Dell is responsible for world peace. Tell that to the resellers. And don't mention that the reason for the global supply chain is because it allows Dell to compete more successfully by pitting the suppliers against each other and making them drive down costs in their respective countries. µ

* THE SAME newspaper today publishes an "interview" with Intel's Gordon Moore, here. We wonder if the interviewer heard the same Intel web cast that the INQ did earlier this month?