Dell: Shhh, don't tell a soul, but the PC sector ISN'T doomed... Dell’s move to take itself private has the tech world buzzing. There’s a lot of talk about the motives behind the deal. Some say Dell is doing it to escape the quarterly visit to the Wall Street meat grinder, where either you meet (or exceed) their expectations or get ground into a fine slurry. Going private frees Dell of public …
Several large banks have stated that there was "no neccessity" for Microsoft's $2 billion "loan" to the provate equity buyout of Dell, so one can "assume" the the Microsoft acts was just a friendly gesture, as if that company has ever do such a deal out of altruism.
Balony. Microsft intent to steer Dell to Microsoft base "only" in every sector of the technology marketplace. Whether it will ultimately be successful is anybody's guess.
Don't get me wrong...I don't think MS is doing anything for Dell out of the kindness of their collective hearts. MS is going to get a pretty good return on their money for this loan. Also, while banks are now saying that money from MS isn't necessary, we don't know when MS was approached or when they jumped into the deal. I don't know for sure, but I would bet that MS was approached early on, before the other financing was in place, but I could be wrong.
And, sure, MS is going to try to steer Dell into a MS-only product strategy. But giving the loan doesn't give them the formal power to force the issue.
As an accountant, I'm not sure that the figures necessarily show a long-term future for Dell. What does make me think there's a future is that I am in a good number of accountancy departments in nvarious organisations where the humble PC or laptop is the standard workhorse. For someone hammering journal entries into a ledger or processing a pile of creditors, there is no logical alternative at present. Yes, systems are becoming more automatic but the number crunching goes on. The same is true those who prepare reports, type letters, feed maintenance systems etc.etc..
I therefore feel that the death of the PC may be coming but it's not imminent. In Michael Dell's favour is that businesses are inherently conservative and Dell machines are embedded in many offices. I am typing this on a Dell laptop working wirelessly with our server and there's a Dell PC adjacent. My Galaxy Note is going too but I need the full-sized beasts for any serious work. A spreadsheet, which is my bread and butter, just doesn't work on a tablet. A 17inch laptop is the one I need.
During MD's absence DELL screwed over at lot of people and they never acknowledged that. How many of those same people are now in a budgetary position to choose or drop Dell completely?
I would pick Big blue over Dell for Services every time! What Dell was GOOD AT is long over, and Asia is rising fast with so many options to directly undercut them in services, or high-end hardware. The DELL Brand has been permanently tarnished IMHO.
Nice article, and I couldn't agree more that modern investors act like nincompoops. We're at the point we need to toss out our stock markets. What we need is to find a way and a forum for companies to find people with money who want to back... companies.
Good move by Dell to bail out of the nonsense. More companies should start putting value back into the long view. Weekly profits as measure of value are tatamount to economic mental disability.
What you are describing is the stock market...pre 1986. If you look at a chart showing GDP and amount of trade in the market between 1935-1985 (29 was of course the bubble pop) you'd see that USA GDP when compared to stocks stayed between 12%-20% for ALL of that time, which includes the biggest boom in American history, the post war manufacturing boom.
But then in 86 you see it shoot up to nearly 30% GDP and every year it has shot ever higher, now its at 430% of GDP and rising...why? Simple before that the only ones in the market were INVESTORS, who did their homework and were in it for the long haul. Reagan when he created the 401K and 403B suddenly flooded the market with money and that money had to go somewhere, where it has gone is to rampant speculation.
This is why America and most of the other stock markets are so focused on trends and gossip, you have too many dollars chasing too little actual value so that true value (such as Dell showed) matters little what matters is the PERCEPTION of value in the form of short term stock bounces.
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