Michael Dell says his company needs to buy service companies to improve on growth.

The direct seller has already said it needs to make big changes in strategy, and has started talking about increasing indirect sales through the channel. Adding services is another Damascene conversion.

Dell said: "We made a small acquisition in Scotland, which has worked out quite well, and I think you will see more acquisitions to add capability to our services team."

He added that services revenue is growing faster than hardware sales and represents a huge opportunity.

Dell bought Scottish reseller ACS in late 2006. Observers said at the time part of the reason for the buy was to get hold of services consultants who would otherwise be hard to recruit to a hardware company.

In December 2006, Dell hired former EDS chief operating officer Steve Schuckenbrock to beef up its services business.

Services is a business most other hardware vendors got into some time ago - HP bought PriceWaterHouseCoopers's consultancy arm back in 2000*.

More from the FT here. ®

*See comments page.

Related stories

• Analysis HP leaves Dell with an EDS-shaped hole (14 May 2008)
• ACS pays $60m for Syan (10 January 2008)
• Rittenmeyer takes CEO job at EDS (20 July 2007)
• Dell cleans up crapware (25 June 2007)
• Dell cheers Q1 with workforce decimation (31 May 2007)
• Dell's channel shake-up ripples across to Europe (31 May 2007)
• Dell sees the channel light while Microsoft is cast as open source redeemer (24 May 2007)
• Scottish IT firms hit by Dell effect (16 January 2007)
• Dell calls in EDS man to head up services (13 December 2006)
• Dell swallows reseller minnow (15 November 2006)
• Dell grows Celtic fringe (15 February 2005)