Joel Kocher

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Joel Kocher is an American businessman.

He was an employee of Dell for seven years, and eventually rose to the position of Dell's #2 executive behind Michael Dell, holding the position of President of Worldwide Marketing, Sales and Service. He presided over Dell's sales, marketing and service during its formative years. The company grew from less than $100 million in revenue to several billion during his tenure. He is credited with developing Dell's early foray into Corporate and Government sectors, and evolving its highly successful direct distribution approach. He built the company's sales force, and led its effort to successfully take marketshare from then leaders Compaq and IBM. His relentless focus on customer satisfaction led to Dell's dominance of its competitors in industry customer satisfaction surveys, including PC Magazine J. D. Power. He left in late 1994 and went on to accept the Chief Operating Officer position at Artisoft. He was promoted to President in 1995.

In 1996, he left to become the President of Power Computing, the first Mac clone company. Kocher left the company after the Board refused to sue Apple after Steve Jobs pulled its license to manufacture and sell Mac clones. Apple eventually acquired Power Computing later that year.

Kocher later joined public company MicronPC as President in January 1998. He was promoted to Chairman and CEO in June of 1998 and tasked with turning the company around. A few years later, he declared "The PC is Dead" as a standalone device, and lauded the future of internet computing. The company sold off the unprofitable PC business and subsequently merged with Interland. which later changed its name to Web.com. He stepped down as CEO in 2005 and remained on the board until 2006. Web.com was acquired by Website Pros, NASDAQ symbol WSPI, in late 2007.

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[edit] External links

• Interland
• Dell