The company now called Dell Technologies began as a freshman's side business in room 2713 of Dobie, a 27-story dormitory, then privately owned, at 2021 Guadalupe Street. Michael Dell, a pre-med student from Houston who arrived at the University of Texas in 1983, assembled and sold upgrade kits for personal computers from the room. He applied for a vendor license so he could bid on State of Texas contracts, and won them because he carried none of the overhead of a computer store. In 1984 Dell bought an Austin business license and registered the company as PC's Limited. He started with about $1,000. He soon moved the operation out of the dorm to a condominium and then to a business center in North Austin. By the end of its first fiscal year PC's Limited had sold about $6 million, and Dell left the university after his freshman year to run it full time. In 1987 the company took his name as Dell Computer Corporation.
The company employed 100 people in fiscal 1986 and moved its manufacturing that year into an 83,000-square-foot building in North Austin. The university bought Dobie in October 2021, and in April 2026 officials announced that the tower would be renamed Dell House.
Getting there
30.2834, -97.7412
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