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Michael Dell Steps Down as CEO
A whole lot of readers made sure we knew that Michael Dell is calling it quits as CEO of Dell, and has named Kevin Rollins, the current president and chief operating officer of Dell, as his successor. Rollins will retain the title of president, but Michael Dell hasn't left completely. He's still planning on sticking around as chairman of the board.
You're getting a huge pension!
a bad*ss like Henry Rollins tearin' it up as CEO. "CUZ I'M A LIAR!"
Look it's a joke about my sig IN MY SIG! LOL!
"Dude, you're getting a Rollins" just doesn't have the same ring to it...
As compared to ....
You stepping down?
So if Michael Dell is stepping down and Kevin Rollins is taking over, does this mean I will soon be able to buy a PC with Rollins written on the case?
Awesome!
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
Dude, you're getting a Dell.
Beep beep.
I don't think this will change anything in the world. Unlike Eisner stepping down, it won't change shit.
CEO's are in the top 10 for highest paid jobs in North America.
He didn't even wait to copycat Steve on this one! What a shame!
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
must have something to do with exponential growth of Lunux on desktops, which I am told is happening
No kidding. Two years ago 1, last year there were 2, this year: 4!
But how will I know what model computer Mike uses now?!? Please tell me they will continue that page.
Someone like Dell will not go quietly into night. Even though his title is changing, nobody believes that he still won't have a profound influence over the company. It is his baby. THis will most likely be like Gates and MS. Sure, his title is different than what it used to be but he certainly still has a tremendous influence.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
First Michael Eisner, now Michael Dell.... Next week, maybe the Darls will go (just a thought...)
Dell has gone a long way in the industry and has helped computing for the masses under Michael Dell's leadership. However, I'm hopefull the new CEO will increase the declining quality of Dell's products. I believe that their cost-cutting measures have really injured their corporate following; they aren't perceived as being as high of quality as they once were.
Said Dell, "It just got to the point where I was so damn rich, It just wasn't fun any more."
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
You won't be laughing in 20 years!
This is not a troll, really. I'm just surprised they said something sorta like "Michael will think about The Next Big Thing (tm)" when they are just a hyper-efficient marketing arm/merchandizing facade for Intel. "Dell and R&D" don't go together in my mind, contrary to "Apple and R&D" or "IBM and R&D". Dell is nothing more than a glorified Northgate (or Everex, whatever).
No, IMO, this does not jive. Either M. Dell has other objectives (politics, maybe, I dunno) or there was some sort of back-stage coup.
Dell said at Oracle conference in SF last year that SUN and HP spend too much on overrated research and development and consequently are driving the cost of their systems up even higher.
He should be fired now.
And when we say "sticking around as chairman of the board", we mean "snorting cocaine off the backs of hookers on his yacht".
We all know who the puppetmaster is. You don't have to wear all the hats to still be the man behind the curtain. This doesn't surprise me, Dell's quality has suffered in recent months and it wouldn't surprise me if he was doing this to take some of the pressure off of himself.
I think this is actually a very wise move by Dell, because while this is a guy who started a business on his own and became extremely good at it, I would be surprised (I honestly don't know) if he was that business school MBA who can lead a company over the long run. Plus, if Rollins messes up, he can always blame the new CEO for all the problems.
1 Dell way, dude?
Candle burns its brightest in the dark
... you really see what you want to see. I almost jumped with joy, but then reread.... And I do not care about Dell.
...remember good 'ol times when IP used to mean Internet Protocol....
Maybe under this new leadership Dell will stop it's massive pay cuts to ensure it will have enough money for it's "10K A Day Giveaway."
I would know. My dad is one of the best Dell's licensing sales rep in his building and went from making bank (compared to what he used to make at Circuit City) to making near $60,000. Not only was it shocking at the time, it was appalling when two days later Dell announced it's "10K A Day Giveaway," not to mention the massive payroll cuts a few weeks after that.
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. -- Larry Wall
I wouldn't want that job, trying to be the next Sinatra.
You won't be laughing in 20 years!
The joke's on you. I'll be dead in 20 years. Who's laughing now?
"Michael Dell is calling it quits as CEO of Dell, and has named Kevin Rollins..."
Oh man, it'd be so much cooler if he named Henry Rollins as his successor. There would really be some ass kicking going on then...
Dude, you're getting a fucking punch in the face!!!
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
Anyone know if the new guy is Linux-friendly?
I know Dell claims to be, and pretended to try Linux on consumer systems and gave up claiming "they weren't selling"... but that was because of the systems they chose to list Linux as an option with.
Just because we like an OS that _happens_ to be free (in both senses of the word), doesn't mean we're cheapskates!
How many Linux users do you know who would go out and buy the bottom-of-the-line of anything?
We go for the hotrods, bigger/better/faster/more.
I don't care if that monster notebook weighs 8.5#, I'm not a wimp, I want the power and rediculously-high resolution screen!
Actually - after reading an article on installing Linux on an I8600, I priced one - amazing how cheap you can get a 1920x1200 LCD notebook for these days.
Too bad it requires the MS-tax.
The 1st thing I'd do with it is shrink down the MS partition to as small as it goes (to keep it around to make the diag-drones happy) and install Linux on it. (just like I did with the notebook I'm typing this on, sadly only having 1400x1050 on the LCD).
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
" but Michael Dell hasn't left completely. He's still planning on sticking around as chairman of the board."
In other words, he's going to keep getting a paycheck but will no longer work for it. To pay for this, Dell will probably have to announce more layoffs or the shifting of jobs overseas but that's okay, so long as somebody's stock options go up.
What are you talking about? Really? You're not making any sense. He hasn't quit, he's just moved to the job title that he likes to do the work that he likes. Dell makes laptops and PDAs already, so wow, some foresight you have there. And shifting to a Linux-only market? Hahahahahahahahahahahaha...yeah.
//Blessed are they that run around in circles, for they shall be known as wheels.
When I first read the headline I thought Dell had finally outsourced their CEO position.
(No doubt to be closer to the core of the company.)
Support top-down outsourcing!
I can only hope that Mr. Rollins has the balls to step up and start supporting Linux. Dell has always been so wishy-washy about it... especially since they are known to get the largest discounts from M$. Perhaps a new CEO will mean new life for a new millenium and we'll actually get better Linux support across more of their product line.
BTW: anyone notice that Dell's latest snail mail ad catalog was offering RedHat? So was Gateway's.
The only thing necessary for Micro$oft to triumph is for a few good programmers to do nothing". North County Computers
Why doesn't Michael Dell become a school teacher like Woz and actually make a difference in someone's life. He doen't need money but he could do something personally enriching.
<sig>no sig</sig>
I'll miss you =(
WANNAWIKI Wannawiki WannaWiki WANNAWIKI!
Only 15 years ago, Dell's new CEO was up on stage fronting his band, Dexy's Midnight Runners, dressed in faded denim dungarees and singing "Come On Eileen" and now look at him... chairman of a global computer corporation... amazing.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Get a room!
Rollins then proceeded to scream primally and body slam the dainty woman from CNN. DELL stock actually managed to reach negative numbers in early trading but closed out at a price of 2.3x10^-30 per share.
--- Ban humanity.
I'd think that the answer is obvious: Rollins will be Linux-friendly if he thinks it will make Dell more money and he won't if he doesn't.
It was more like Dude you getting voted out. The Article doesn't mention it, but radio mentioned that he did not get re- elected to his position as CEO and so they decided to split the position. I can't find mention of it online yet however so no link.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
A Calcutta Orangutang.
A Minesweeper clone that doesn't suck
One of the reforms suggested (i.e. not enforced by any code or law) by the SEC as a response to the enron/worldcom pseudo-scandal is that the job of CEO and chairman be split. Note that Disney just did this in the hopes of deflecting some dirt.
In the case of Dell: if your company is doing well but you want to split this job to make the Street happy, well, would you take the job that involves more work or the one that involves less? So the CEO job becomes more like a COO...and guess what? Rollins is the COO right now!
Like other posters I doubt this implies much change for Dell the company or Dell the man.
When I first glanced at this... I coulda sworn it said "Cowboy Neil Steps Down as CEO of Bell Labs".
The only thing necessary for Micro$oft to triumph is for a few good programmers to do nothing". North County Computers
Gates scratched his backside, Linus got a haircut and Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. Film at 11.
Sigs are bad for your health.
Are they going to rename the company
Rollins?
the GIANT HEAD of Dell, just got a little smaller.
Actually this is just a investors game. In the wake of some of the corporate scandals, large investors are pushing for the appearance of "better corporate governance". They would prefer that the Chairman of the Board is not also the CEO. The Board is supposed to provide oversight over the people running the day to day operations.
See what just happened at Disney with Eisner.
Gates and Balmer played this game a while back. Let Uncle Fester run the company day to day and be the henchman, and let Billy play research boy and still be Chairman of the Board. Then Billy can run around playing politics, giving PowerPoint presentations, and pretending to be a philanthropist by giving away some of the billions he made running an illegal monopoly in the form of "free Microsoft products for the poor and needy".
But really it means nothing. It's just a sham. Do you really think the GIANT HEAD is going anywhere? He is still in control at Dell.
What does a licensing sale rep at Dell do?
I thought they just sold hardware? Not software or other services.
I won't
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake -- but you could be if you got off your ass.
Isn't that all those catalogs are good for?
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
Oh, I get it.
-DB-
E-mail is like a prison: a prison with no walls... and no toilet. -Strong Bad
He's still planning on sticking around as chairman of the board.
You have been elected Chairman of the Board (again).
Pay each player $50.
Micheal Dell answered: " I just once wanted to do something where Steve Jobs had to follow my footsteps."
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
That Michael Dell was the name of that stupid kid in the advert.
...to India!
It's true! I read it on BBspot earlier today!
The Dell vision has been and continues to be to enter markets just before they reach commoditization and to rapidly scale up market share by undercutting on price.
Think they don't have R&D people? Think again -- they've got hundreds. But those hundreds are busy looking for the next market Dell can enter and dominate (think of how they entered the server market and, more recently, the PDA market).
Just because someone spends their R&D dollars on econometric models and market research rather than trying to invent truly new products doesn't mean they're not innovating. Dell taught an entire generation of successful companies how to analyze, parse, enter and dominate markets.
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
...selling XT clones out of the trunk of his car on Guadalupe, just across from Dobie Mall.
Michael Dell hasn't left completely. He's still planning on sticking around as chairman of the board
I thought Sinatra was the The Chairman of the Board.. Jeez just cause the guys dead doesn't mean you can let a dullard like Dell into the Rat Pack..
I'm sure Dell can't sing, drink, carouse, or even wisecrack his way anywhere into Sinatra's league.
And I'm doubly sure, Frankie Blue never wore flat front dockers with the balloon seat
I hate spyware and spies
Mr. Rollins has my full support, and I wish him well in his new career. I thought he was really good in Johnny Mnemonic, much better than Keanu Reeves (the current CEO of Hewlett Packard).
Can we please get Dell servers with AMD64 procs now? Please?
Family frustrated with their old computer looks mournfully at a monitor giving off a BSOD, when in comes henry rollins with a 21 inch monitor under one arm, and a tower under the other. Snap Snap, fixes em up, and the family gets back to surfing for prawn.
Henry Rollins walks towards the camera as the room lighting slowly turns red:
With Dell's excellent customer support, as well as on-site delivery and setup, I think you'll find that there really is no other option. Remember, here at Dell, We'll burn your heart out, then eat your soul."
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
Maybe now that he's got more spare time, he'll post on /. more often!
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
... Paging Dr. Darwin."
Im sure this is happening because Dell's once bright image is fading into darkness and they are quickly becoming the next Packard Bell, selling junk computers and worse support for them.
This is an interesting story and all, but what would make it really cool is if the guy who was to become the new CEO had the same last name as a celebrity of some sort.* *(Yes, Kevin Rollins has the same last name as Henry Rollins. It's a fucking laugh riot, like when a clown gets hacked to pieces with a butterknife - now please stop posting about it.)
Ctrl-Alt-Rollins .... I don't think so.
Please educate me. What has Compaq contributed to technology? Didn't they buy out the first company to create micro-computers?
Ted Waitt did the same thing at Gateway three or four years ago, to pursue his interests in sexual violence prevention and equitable access to technology. Oddly enough I work on both of those, and have had the chance to meet him several times. Waitt's intelligence and money have helped in these areas, and I can only hope that Michael Dell might think about doing something similar.
Online citizen journalism from the inner city: The View From The Ground
That's sound more like a paraphrase, unless he was just speaking off the cuff. Dell's direct model has always been based on "give the customer what they want when they ask for it", as opposed to "spend a lot of money to build something new and then spend a lot of money trying to convince the customer they need it (at a premium price)", which is the basis of the companies which you, for some reason, prefer to do business with.
Most companies would rather pay the best price for equipment that fulfills their needs. Hence, the popularity of Dell. Apparently your company would rather pay a high-magin markup for the latest and greatest toy, which has yet to be proven to fulfill a need.
What the hell does my weekend hobby have to do with this article on Slashdot?
Rollins, will come here for a min, please?
Sure, boss, what's up?
Dude, you're getting a Dell!
Where I work we just bought a ton of HP server boxes, even though we normally use Dell. The reason? I believe the HP boxes were something like $6 a box less...
Never mind that the HP servers can't all seem to go in the same rack without overheating.
Geez, didn't realize so many people *liked* the catalogs... ;)
;-)
It was supposed to be funny. Laugh.
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
It's SONNY, man, SONNY.
Mr. Dell is cashing out because he knows the PC market is TOAST!. PCs are such a commodity now days that Dell doesn't have an advantage anymore. Just look at the sub $200 PCs at Walmart! And with China and Korea quickly sucking up market share, it won't be long before you can nab a highend PC for $200.
I'm not saying this is bad. It's just that Mr. Dell is smart and KNOWS the market is about to crumble. In fact, Dell doesn't make anything anymore, they just rebrand the laptops made by Samsung. Soon, Samsung will cut out the middle man and sell the laptops themselves.
Also, you can forget about fixing and repairing PCs as job security. That goldmine has ran out. Why pay someone $100 just to patch up an older PC when you can get a new one for double that amount (and comes with warranty)?
Life is not for the lazy.
I guess he's done with hoarding.
Before you geeks get too worked up over congratulating yourselves over someone else's success as if it validates YOUR existence, lets look at a few of the facts:
/. IDs over 100 probably can't remember (ask your parents), Dell sold systems shabbier than the cheapest eMachines crap. I even sold them (slumming during the '89-91 recession) at Staples. The power supplies were these little wimpy 65 W blobs, they rattled, and the return rate for hardware failure alone was 20%.
Michael Dell is a marketer, NOT a geek. He is not an engineer. Who knows what his degree is in - multiple biographies yielded not a clue, just "he attended the University of Texas . . . " The lack of specifics is an indicator it was NOT something technical. So go easy before identifying with him. Even the evil genius anti-Christ Gates once was able to write tight code.
Dell has been known from it's inception for it's marketing and business model, NOT it's innovation or quality. Back in the AT age, a time that those with
Not to beat too much on the quality issue (OK, lets!), remember that Dell actually pulled out of the laptop business for several years in the early-mid '90's due to quality problems. To decide that your product is SO BAD that you can't upgrade on the fly but actually have to give up (on a major market segment) DOES speak to their *eventual* integrity, but not their quality. What were they even doing selling those bricks in the first place?
Dell has been a builder and staunch defender of the WinTel hegemony. When M$ was learning how to behave like the (tried and convicted) monopolists they are, Mike was right by their side. Even today, just try calling Dell and buying their hardware without an M$ OS.
Dell has been a leader in offshore outsourcing. Nuff said! Well, maybe not! The next time you complain about the job market, think of your old pal Mike! He's a major cause for it!
Jealous? No. I've carved my niche and am doing OK and am quite happy in it. I have NO desire to enter the commodity hardware market. But my admiration (and dollars) go to the true innovators and those with the integrity and courage to run their businesses with respect for their customers and their employees.
I knew a guy who was fired from Dell after they trumped up an accusation at him for surfing for porn at work. They did that to get around paying unemployement or severance or anything. A lot of people got let go for similar false reasons at a time when a lot of people were let go.
So whenever I hear "Dude, you're getting a Dell" I mentally add "...so bend over and take it"
Michael Dell is probably the least shady character on Dell's board of directors.
Have a look at their BOD page. You will see that a lot of the people on the board are affiliated with large banks (chase/manhattan), oil companies, defense contractors, government agencies, etc. However, this is typical of many large US companies.
M. Dell however, was a true business man. Started Dell from the ground up and had no other motives.
Disney kicked Eisner as chairman, but /. rejected my article
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
[in best Dave Chappel voice]
"I'm Michael Dell, Bitch!"
"What did the five fingers say to the face?"
"SLAP!"
w00t! Go Kevin, BYU Alumni! We are taking over the world! HAHAHAHAHA!
Mr. Dell is getting out before his company hits the mat again and again from the falling dollar. Sure he is making money but the end is near. Most Asian OEM's are under immense margin pressures right now thanks to China. Dell, a major tapper of cheap Asia since the early 1990's, is facing the troubles with Just-in-time orders from Asia. The virtues of the high dollar - cheap Asia - buy in volume are now nearing the end. Purchasing managers and Dell marketing is finding it harder to ramp to profit as the dollar collapses since they must pay for stock (parts) that will be increasingly expensive tomorrow instead of cheaper. This is so unlike the early 1990's and MBA's who have studied Dell are going to get a fist to the face because of Asian economic nationalism. The China yuan peg is offsetting the pressure slightly today, but it will nevertheless increase trouble for major US importers. Dell is getting out because he is likely bored and wants to leave with his reputation intact. Some consultant probably told him the US economy is in for some serious pain and he doesn't want the US economic nationalists pointing fingers at CEOs like him in the wake of US economic collapse. What's the US debt level these days? 7 trillion?
I guess you haven't met many executives. Golf games, flight sims, sports games. And odd one here and there who can go toe to toe with you in Halo or who'll take the plunge into Desert Combat. So who knows? Maybe Dell eagerly anticipates Half-Life 2 and Doom III as much as the rest of us.
Now, for most of the folks in most offices, no they don't require a machine with much umph to word process, email, and whatever.
yes, I am better than you.
I can see these companies send their stock price up a few notch for a few days.
If their managment were smart they'd take this opportunity to really start advertising and whipping their operation into dell mode.
We have purchased over 60 DELL PowerEdge servers running RHAS. They have been extremely reliable and DELL has no problem selling Linux on them. As far as desktops go, a majority of Linux users either build their box(es) themselves or buy it from a Linux-only distributor. Get the facts before you bash on DELL, because they kick many other companies asses (such as Gateway) as far as Linux support.
This isn't much of a paraphrase. I've heard similar things from the inside of Dell in regards to Compaq's well-known and well-developed R&D division (now part of HP, but still intact as an R&D division last time I checked, which was admittedly many months ago).
Compaq's R&D may be bleeding edge, but to say that it's "yet to be proven to fulfill a need" is just plain ignorant. Just because a SMB (small- to medium-size business) doesn't need systems running RAID arrays that can survive multiple simultaneous drive failures [which Compaq pioneered], or systems employing "RAID memory" technology and can survive on vanilla Dell boxes, doesn't diminish Compaq's contribution in any way. Nor does it elevate Dell's position in the market.
Dell's best market is the ability to cater to the masses at a reasonable cost. However, those of us who have been working in and supporting the Intel server market (and those who've been around longer that have worked with mid-range systems) for more than a decade more clearly recognize the benefits of choosing a Compaq-level service/support/research organization BECAUSE of its R&D division. High-class R&D almost always breeds high-class products, and certainly breeds an environment of TESTING before release. I can name off only one or two faux pas from the Compaq server line (one with a RAID array firmware conflict, the other with a mobo firmware problem) from those 10+ years; I can point out that many problems in only 3 months of my last job where I supported a room full of current Dell's.
In my opinion , Dell does a great job repackaging the latest Intel processor in a vanilla, reference-level server-class [loose term in this usage] motherboard and shipping it out. What I DON'T see from Dell is the requisite testing of those systems together to provide a stable overall level of quality in those servers.
Compaq servers may be slightly behind the bleeding curve because it takes time to properly test hardware and software. If you skip testing, or do a poor job of it, of course you can be first out the door with the latest and greatest. But it's not worth it to me.
Real-world examples:
Company 1 - major 3-letter acronym subsidiary. Could not buy XXX servers internally because mfg couldn't keep up, so we bought Compaqs. We had a high-availability, enterprise class, global infrastructure that almost NEVER failed in 5 years. We had a few Dells in lab and development environments that required a fair number of repairs over the same timeframe. (Yes, this is anecdotal, I know.) For what it's worth, we paid less externally for Compaq servers than we would have internally for XXX servers, which is how I was able to run it right through the XXX CFO's office. :)
Company 2 - Anecdotal, and YMMV, but I've seen this repeated so many times... don't even get me started on the Dell workstations. If I ever have to call Dell Support and get another bonehead in India, I will go postal! Hands-down, the worst tech support I've ever dealt with was Dell's workstation/laptop folks in Bangalore (circa September 2003, and swore never again would I call!)...
DAMNIT! I saw this story on my local news station about a week ago, and wanted to post it to slashdot. Though, after repeatedly having my ego badly bruised by the tender term, "REJECTED" I decided not to. (sigh)
No one ever said that Bill Gates was a stupid man. He is very smart, and he knows that he is not immortal. By stepping aside, like Michael Dell has done now, he's showing investors and customers that the company will live on even after they leave.
The classic example is Oracle, where Larry Ellison is Oracle and Oracle is Larry Ellison. The problem with that is Larry likes extreme sports, he places himself in high risk situation very often. Him dieing could put the company in a tail spin in the stock market. Customers could lose faith, and the company would be sallowed up by a larger firm. Larry's had lieutenants who could have taken over for him. However, his unwillingness to leave his position caused them to look for better jobs elsewhere. Instead, now he has people who will not challenge him, and people who he might not trust to run the company.
I applaud Michael Dell for doing this, and also not naming his company Michael Dell Corp. :)
Just because a SMB (small- to medium-size business) doesn't need systems running RAID arrays that can survive multiple simultaneous drive failures [which Compaq pioneered]
Actually, no, they didn't do all the RAID pioneering in the PC world. The DDA was an in-house-designed product that was pretty darned nifty for its time, and resulted in quite a few patents for the people who worked on it.
Back in the early 90s, Dell was actually shaping up to be a formidable engineering company in its own right. We (I worked there at the time) designed and debugged our own motherboards and ASICs, and Dell was the first PC vendor to come out with an 80486 workstation, beating Compaq (who was famous for being first with the 80386) to the punch.
People around here seem to be selling Dell short as an engineering outfit, and that's not entirely fair or accurate. After it became clear that the PC was a commodity, Dell's engineering efforts were redirected at manufacturing and support processes rather than the products themselves, and that's when they really started to kick butt. No one -- not HP, not Compaq, not IBM -- proved able to compete with Dell's process engineering talent.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
The problem is why go with AMD when your everday Joe only knows about "Intel inside" and that more MhZ /Ghz is what is best.
your average Joe - who is DELL's largest consumer - beside possible server market - hear the name Intel and think it is a gerat PC - they heard the name AMD and think - wtf is that?
Intel marketing far exceeds that of AMD and because of that even though the prescott is currently a flop -your average Joe wont care - all he cares about is he is getting the latest and greatest CPU that runs @ 3.4ghz!! so it MUST be the best an fastest - he has not idea about shorter pipilines and such so Intel is the way to go!
AMD seriouslyt needs to improve their marketing to direct more towards your everday user.
Why doesn't Michael Dell spend 14hrs a day working the phones in Bangalore, enriching the life of his customers who spent first-world money only to put up with third-rate service.
http://fsfeurope.org/
Yeah, in 20 years, there'll be 1 million Linux desktops. In other words, about 15% of the OS X market today. Ooooh, I'm quakin'.
While it is a pet peeve of the SEC in terms of splitting the responsibilities of the chairman and CEO positions following the Enron debacle, this has been something CalPERS has been pressuring many companies they hold interests in. This is one of the reasons why CalPERS withheld its support for Michael Eisner and right afterward, Disney announced it would be splitting the responsibilities. Dell probably saw the writing on the wall, even though there's not a lot to complain about if you are a Dell stockholder, as compared with Disney...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
For a second there I was starting to think this was true!
It's the unfortunate phenomena of the joke event horizon. Individually, the jokes are amusing. Collectively, they make you want to fly a plane into a building somewhere. Don't worry. String theory shall save us all.
--- Ban humanity.
Shut up Bill Gates.
It's ok, I'll take care of you.