I disagree that Dell is a similar company to Google. Google designs, innovates, and improves their own products. Dell is more similar to Nike--neither manufactures anything. They manage their brand identity (including picking out some options out of a supplier catalog about what their future laptops will look like) and spend money on advertising, but they do not make any of the actual components--not one. Dell is not a technology company any more than Nike is one. Dell does do simple assembly, but I don't think it's very technical stuff to put 7 components together on an assembly line.

HP is a tech company because they design printers and manufacture calculators. Apple is definitely a tech company (software, itunes, etc.) Sony? Not sure. Dell? Same as Nike.