Get a Dell, dude

When an xByte Technologies customer called the firm to complain about an order one day in late 2006, Tom Santilli jumped all over it.

The CEO of the Bradenton-based firm, one of the largest resellers of refurbished Dell servers and equipment in the country, Santilli says he set up xByte like he was a customer. “I'm ridiculously impatient,” he says. “I hate calling somewhere and not getting a human.”

That's why Santilli preaches a business by the Golden Rule philosophy at xByte. In this case the client was a dealer who planned to resell the equipment, eight severs, to defense and aerospace contractor General Dynamics. That manufacturer was then going to use the servers in tanks it builds for the U.S. Army.