Territories of Profit : Communications, Capitalist Development, and the Innovative Enterprises of G. F. Swift and Dell Computer

Territories of Profit compares Dell Computer, the dominant computer manufacturer of the late twentieth century, and G. F. Swift, the leading meatpacking firm of the late nineteenth century, to reveal how communications revolutions in different periods enabled businesses to innovate their operations, reorganize the structure of the firm, and reshape the geography of profit-making. By depicting the parallel experiences of Dell and Swift, which both deployed revolutionary communications technologies in their business systems and transformed patterns of development through their innovative advances, the book challenges simplified representations of the contemporary economy as historically unprecedented. Territories of Profit also incorporates information from interview sources within Dell to portray the "Dell Model" in ways never before revealed in existing studies of the PC maker