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Microsoft May Invest $1B-$3B In Dell Buyout
alexander_686 writes "We heard that Dell is in buyout talks with private equity firms. Now, the word is that Microsoft may invest one to three billion dollars in that buyout. For that amount of money, Microsoft isn't going for majority ownership, but it would be a significant stake. Dell is worth around $22-25 billion. Speculation is that investors would put up $5-7 billion in equity, borrowing the rest. As a point of reference, Michael Dell's stock is worth $3.6 billion."
My stocks aren't much lower, amateur
KERNEL PANIC -SIGFAULT AT ADDRESS #51A54D07
that a fool and his money are soon parted.
Is Michael Dell shutting down the company and giving the money back to the shareholders??? :)
Dude you are being owned by the man
...is Linux flying off new Dell computers.
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
Microsoft has been dissecting Apples strategy of being a device and os company. Or perhaps they want to be IBM, which does the same thing? A Microsoft stake in Dell might mean an end to Studiobuntu Laptops, though. And I think that would be a shame. Those things are nice.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
HP is going in the toilet and keeps talking up the post-PC world, taking a page from Apple's playbook. HP Servers are still a great product, but if HP goes under, the Dell becomes almost the lone supplier of Windows enterprise hardware.
Dell has embraced Linux more and more over the years. And they haven't been pushing Windows 8 tablets as much as other companies. Microsoft needs strong hardware partners to push their ecosystem.
If Dell is suddenly controlled by new investors, you have to wonder what direction they'd take the company. It makes sense for Microsoft to want some say in Dell's future to protect their own interests.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
They would be in talks with HP. Just sayin'.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
So no more linux on dell systems. MS may push there UEFI boot lock in and then say bye bye to a big part of the sever market then.
I say go for it. Those two companies deserve each other.
Dell is the most loyal company to Microsoft of any of the OEM's and they always play ball. Their efforts on *nix support are minimal and they are legendary for the work they will do try to inspire you to run Windows. With Asian OEM's increasingly dis-enfranchised with Microsoft the need for a partner that isn't going go their own way is paramount.
I wouldn't say things are as bad as around a decade ago when Microsoft bailed out Apple to prevent their bankruptcy. That being said I think a fair argument can be made that Microsoft needs Dell more than Dell needs Microsoft. If your surprised about this investment you haven't been in the industry very long.
"Just sayin'."
When you absolutely, positively want to make sure people reading your post know you are a retard with nothing of value to add.
Your angst is palpable.
ring ring ..
Dell support this is "John" how may I help you?
Ah hi John, this is Steve at microsoft I'd like to open a support ticket because I'm having trouble transferring $3B as part of a private equity buyout.
OK Steve while I do the needful opening a support ticket I have some tasks for you, I was wondering if you could reboot the computer.
Well John the problem is on your website, I'm trying to paypal you $3M and I'm getting an error message about
Please do the needful Steve and simply click the start button, then shutdown...
No John this is windows 8 there is no start button anymore
Oh so sorry Steve let me pull up the correct script... Ah I see you are needing to restore windows from your install partition, which will reinstall all the crapware and drivers and a unpatched version of windows from 2010 complete with 57 varieties of security hole, but we don't charge extra for that.
OK John (Steve humors John, and fumbles around for his iPad to use instead, pretending just so they can get past the script)
I'm not really sure where to go with this, other than it should probably end with "steve" from microsoft throwing a chair, or "developers develpers developers" or somesuch nonsense.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders,"
He says it all in my opinion better than anyone has on the page...
* :)
Do I disagree with it?
No, by no means - If Microsoft can come up with the uptime stable that IBM big iron has?? Who could complain.
They're decent now, running 5-9's in clustered failovers, but in other categories?
I don't *think* (unless anyone can correct me here that is, I'll take it) MS has *quite* achieved IBM's mark there for business & "mission-critical"/"enterprise-class" - yet!
I say, yet, because this MIGHT be what they need to do, to do it. Focus more on hardware specifics & setups for it. Make it better, stronger, faster... smarter failover tests during operations, doing even better than "5-9's" 99.999% uptime, albeit from SINGLE servers.
APK
P.S.=> I, of course per my subject-line again, don't HAVE any "mod points" to give since I post "ac" - however, IF I did? Well, see subject-line above, I'd be 1st in line dropping an "+1 Insightful" into the mixture , but I can't, so - see subject-line above...
... apk
If Microsoft wants a PC manufacturing business, why not just finish off the job they have already started and set one up themselves? They already have the product design, retail links and manufacturing capability in place from the Surface Pro, all it would take is launching a desktop or two (and possibly some servers) to flesh out the range and they would be all set to compete with Dell, for far less than $3Bn.
I'm no fan of Microsoft, but I can see big corporate buyers attaching more value to a Microsoft branded PC than an identically specified Dell branded one, on name alone.
The real issue here is the potential for monopoly abuse, Dell's current bulk deal for Windows might already be so good that it would be an unfair subsidy if they were owned by MSFT.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
between Dell's unbeatable reputation for sleek, innovative, high-margin technological wizardry, and Microsoft's remarkable ability to bring such inimitable mix of elegant simplicity and raw sex-appeal to new markets as puts their rabid fan base into a swoon, every other player in the industry would doubtless close down and give the money back to their shareholders.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
What I'd like to know is whether Microsoft is planning to oust out all the poems by taking complete control of dell, or whether it is a strategic move on part of Microsoft to make sure that they steer project orphelia in their direction to have a windows flavour rather than an android flavour.
They might be thinking that with kinect they have solved the input peripherals problem.
They removed the Start (power) button.
Actually, one of the benefits of private equity is that they usually DO think of the long term because they don't have to worry about things like their stock tanking and the short term thinking that goes with quarterly reporting.
Dell had threatened to make nice cheap $50 appliance that connected to a host OS in the cloud.
That threat seems to have produced a nice response from the NW.
Apple has complete control over their production pipeline, software and hardware.
Microsoft has historically only handled the software part of the pipeline, while letting the OEMs take care of hardware.
Microsoft now looks at Apple and sees that the full-pipe model is viable and wants to cut out the middle man, the OEM.
Instead of building the hardware part of the pipe for themselves, they do things like poison Nokia or take a stake in Dell, because they perceive subversive paths to be cheaper and quicker.
MS wants to be a full-on hardware vendor now, expanding beyond game consoles and PC peripherals. Zune, Kin, Surface, it all leads here.
If MS owns enough of Dell to exert control, how will the other OEMs react? Their symbiotic business model with Microsoft will become hostile pretty quick.
If dell is sold to microsoft they will screw it up just like they did windows 8.
Apple has complete control over their production pipeline, software and hardware.
Microsoft is not buying Apple, its simply buying a seat on its board [a position of *influence*] with enough money to lock Dell down with Golden handcuffs, so its less building its own hardware...more making sure it sells locked [police state] Microsoft products and does not start selling Android or god forbid tries to do something innovative ironically like completely control their production pipeline, software and hardware...maybe using Linux.
So if the investors put up 5-7B in equity, and borrow the remaining 15B, how is that money "borrowed?"
Is it raised by selling new Dell shares, thereby diluting existing shareholder value? Or, is it borrowed by the private equity firms selling new shares in their own companies?
"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders,"
To be fair that quote was back in 1997 and Apple was $17 a share it has lost 20 times that in the last three months, and that was 4 years before the ipod changed Apple. Steve Jobs had only just returned to Apple...after the buyout of Next.
Ironically the 1995 Steve Jobs complained how Apple milked the Macintosh for profits and left itself vulnerable to disruption and market share collapse...fortunately Apple wouldn't do that again.
There could be some shareholder influence into this all. On Dell's part I heard M. Dell aims to get rid off shareholder's pressure for stable quarterly results in order to restructure Dell, and therefore the buyout.
And then I guess Steve "Chair" Ballmer heard that "look at Apple!" too often. They took some inspiration from Cuppertino already and while it was mostly desktop features in the past they now try to copy business model features like controlling both hardware and software.
It's not just mice any more, Nokia, Surface, Dell. Looking at the margin Apple manages to cash in and with the pc market developing limits to the perspective of endless expansion MS might hope to U-turn the course and try to become an Apple 2.0.
Will it work? I doubt it, there is a chance they fail to reach Pure Apple status and end as apple puree instead.
Licensing OSX for Apple hardware only has been a cornerstone of Apple's strategy, will we see a MS replica of this?
Remember what they did to fight DrDos, will MS have the upright, straight character to withstand the temptations to tweak win(n+1) just a little bit to make it run just a tad faster on MS hardware? Will you believe them when they put an honest face on saying "nooo, we didn't and we wouldn't, ever..."?
MS as a producer of "standard" OS and software grew up together with that multitude of hardware makers that developed "standard" hardware, with both sides defining standard on each other.
Then Linux grew up and it now runs on everything that knows how to 01 + 01 = 10. A different approach to becoming standard and it succeeded, there is no windows for wristwatches, no windows for routers, etc. The pc "standard" is on it's way into marginality. Less important to defend that stronghold.
I see it as an motion of retreat when MS now tries to follow Apple, producing harware and OS/software. It will (further) alienate established hardware producers and it will open up fields fpr Linux on the desktop.
605413? Yes, it's a prime.
That assumes they're not planning on flipping the company in a few years. In that case all long term bets are off, and all they want to do is make the company look good on paper for the next resale. And in my experience, that's the more common case.
Dell may not be a good example of that, since Michael Dell is still involved and presumably still cares about the company that bears his name. But the company I work for has been bought and sold at least 6 or 7 times (most recently last month). And for the first 2 years, the private equity guys talk about how much they 'believe in the business'. After that, every decision makes sense only in the context of a jacked up balance sheet in prep for resale...
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
You already can't get Windows 7 period on some of their laptop line. Now, I guess we can say good-bye to Windows 7 and have to purchase the upgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 7 aftermarket, and they will probably tell us that voids the warranty.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Turns out UEFI boot lock isn't the only impediment to other OS's. Ever try setting up a Windows/Linux dual boot on a system with an OEM copy of Windows and a UEFI boot loader - Windows 7 in this case without boot lock 'security'. It's hard - most linux distros can't set it up out of the box, and even those that can require you to be able to boot the installer from the CD/DVD or flash drive in EFI mode - which is iffy, depending on your firmware. It's possible to install in legacy mode - though the system will not be bootable until you 'convert' it to EFI mode. Prior to converting my brand new Linux Mint 14 installation, I was only able to boot into it by loading grub2 from CD and booting it from there.
After just having spent two hideous weekends getting this to work, I am quite a bit less optimistic for the future of Linux on the desktop. Dual boot setups used to be really easy.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
It is borrowed from the company they are going to acquire! They borrow it, and make it an obligation of the company they are about to acquire!
As a result of course to meet the cash flow demands it is all about short-term cost cuts, abandoning R&D and new initiatives, oursourcing, etc.
"Or, is it borrowed by the private equity firms selling new shares in their own companies?"
What? you think the private equity firms risk Their OWN Money? Silly rabbit, risk is what Other People's Money is for.
(Well, they do risk some capital, but only what they put in, not wipe-the-whole-firm-out bankruptcy risk)
I recently purchased around 50k in Dell servers. Sat on the fence awhile and my rep kept discounting and discounting. Original configurations added up to about 65k, (self configured on the website was much higher). He wanted that end of quarter sale very badly.
As well, I recently investigated Dells new AppAssure backup software. They bought out the original company in Feb I believe. Long story short, I paid 48% of the original quote which was 12k for 7 server / 100 workstation licenses.
I wonder if the push is on to get those end of quarter results up to enhance earnings for a potential sale?
UEFI boot lock in
Why did I read that as "MS may push their UEFI boot-lickin' and then say bye bye to a big part of the server market then"? Oh, I guess it's because my screen is just dirty.
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
Dell and Microsoft have had a long and close business relationship. If Dell ends up going private equity then Microsoft wants a seat at the table, so to speak. My feeling is that Dell has quietly conceded the consumer market to Apple and Samsung. Sure, they still sell in that market but their bread and butter is the corporate market. Just like Microsoft. So Microsoft wants to protect that partnership by having some influence in the direction of a private equity led Dell.
. .. after microsoft invested in Apple.
#amiright?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Steve, is that you?
Are you ok with a Dell business machine? If you go to the Dell website and look at ANY business machine (Optiplex, Vostro, Dimension, Latitude), either desktop or laptop, they are listed across the board with Windows 7. Windows 8 is not in sight. I think it will be a long time before businesses are ready for the Windows 8 nonsense.
At the time I took it as an attempt to diffuse talk of them stealing Mac OS for Windows.
Stealing MacOS for Windows? Did you do a lot of drugs in the late 90's?
Microsoft invested in Appleand committed to putting out a new version of Office for Mac in order to ensure Apples existance. Apple being around offered proof of a viable alternative to Microsoft to point to anytime anyone started throwing around microsoft-monopoly lawsuit talks, which was happening a lot at the time, noteably by some folks in congress.
Actually...
Jobs, on his return, wanted to be rid of all the lawsuits between Apple and Microsoft.
The biggie was the presence of Apple's Quicktime code in Windows (because of a contractor's shortcut).
The end-result of the negotiations was that Apple would keep IE as the default browser, MS would continue to write Office for Mac for at least 5 years and would invest $150Mill in non-voting Apple stock (which they later sold at a profit).
People not knowing the facts simply invented reasons for the investment that suited them.
MS needs companies like DELL and HP because these companies are putting MS product onto business and Govt desktops. Without these companies, Linux and MacOS would get a bigger foot hold in these big buying areas.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
"Holy shit, I've been impressed the past few months. You've gotten past your HOSTS file thing and are actually contributing constructive, on point posts" - by gmhowell (26755) on Tuesday January 22, @08:47PM (#42664281) Homepage
You're outnumbered in that sentiment by a 242++:1 ratio (many orders of magnitude MORE than your opinion) vs. your opinion, as to the quality of my postings here on /., over the years now:
---
Roughly 242++ of them & I post as AC (hard to get even +1, as /. hides our posts & we "AC"'s start @ ZERO/0 points, unlike registered "lusers", lol!):
---
+5 'modded up' posts by "yours truly" (8):
HOSTS & BGP:2010 -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1901826&cid=34490450
FIREFOX IN DANGER: 2011 -> http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2559120&cid=38268580
TESLA:2010 -> http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1872982&cid=34264190
TESLA:2010 -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1806946&cid=33777976
NVIDIA 2d:2006 -> http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=175774&cid=14610147
Ubuntu Linux sends back local disk query strings to CANONICAL: 2012 -> http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3304601&cid=42234351
Question to Mr. Mark Shuttleworth @ UBUNTU/CANONICAL: 2012 -> http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3304725&cid=42243467
COMPUTER ASSOCIATES BUSTED FOR ACCOUNTING FRAUD:2010 -> http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1884922&cid=34350102
----
+4 'modded up' posts by "yours truly" (5):
APK SECURITY GUIDE:2005 -> http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=167071&cid=13931198
INFO. SYSTEMS WORK:2005 -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=161862&cid=13531817
WINDOWS @ NASDAQ 7++ YRS. NOW:2009 -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1290967&cid=28571315
CARMACK'S ARMADILLO AEROSPACE:2005 -> http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=158310&cid=13263898
What I admire about Theo DeRaadt of BSD fame: 2012 -> http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3007641&cid=40785151
----
+3 'modded up' posts by "yours truly" (7):
APK MICROSOFT INTERVIEW:2005 -> http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=155172&cid=13007974
Linux security failures 2011-2012: 2012 -> http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3319303&cid=42306663
APK MS SYMBOLIC DIRECTORY LINKS:2005 -> http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166850&cid=13914137
APK FOOLS IE7 INSTALL IN BETA HOW TO:2006 -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=
Now, "Rinse, Lather, & Repeat", troll -> http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3400783&cid=42664689
* :)
(Your AC reply to yourself? Yea, that really "fools us" gmhowell (not!)).
APK
P.S.=> GmHowell's a KNOWN TROLL that "gets off" on stalking/harassing me online (talk about in need of "medication", lol) -> http://slashdot.org/~gmhowell/journal/266768 and is, in my opinion? In need of some "meds", lol...
... apk
Your claim has not been made evident in recent years. Wall Street had a lot of equity in the housing bubble, for instance. Yet, they continued to drive that bubble into the stratosphere before it finally burst. I have zero faith in the predictions of economists and financial advisors.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
And you think MS couldn't have kept the quicktime issue tied up on court for a decade? At a time when Apple had no competitive OS and was hemmorhaging $1B/year? MS's investment restored a ton of confidence in Apple. Without that, things were looking very bleak for Apple.
I think keeping Apple around as the Monopoly foil was very influential in MS's decision to settle with a large investment and promise of upkeep instead of stringing along a floundering company in court.
It can be that the private equity situation is a matter of scavenging vultures that raid the company as they grind it into the ground.
However, if MS and Michael Dell were the principle private stake holders, I'd imagine it is at least trying to be what you describe: a way to run the damn business with some risk without day traders killing you. MS would undoubtedly be looking to 'be more Apple', and Dell's position in the market is better than MS's current circumstance of starting from scratch...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I recently attempted to buy a XPS 14 from them. As I needed Windows 7 for my Father, I selected the "Small & Medium Business" version as the "Home" version only offered Windows 8. I was ready to pay with either my Dell account or Credit Card.
They would not sell it to me.
Couldn't come up with a business reason for this behavior until I heard that Microsoft was a major investor in the buyout. My guess is that they are attempting to bring down the stock price to reduce the cost of the buyout.
IBM has gotten better at telling when they know best versus customer. They'll still very happily sell you an IBM-knows-best solution (and honestly, they frequently do), but they no longer are so full of hubris that they'll screw up an opporunity where they do not know best (or at least the customer will never believe IBM knows best).
In the contexxt of this discussion, they take Windows very seriously and, IIRC, they still see more revenue from MS related sales than Linux.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Won't work. They wouldn't sell a business machine to me.
Many MS insiders were heavily invested in Dell when It first went public. This is just the second round.
gmhowell "gets off" on stalking/harassing me online -> http://slashdot.org/~gmhowell/journal/266768 here on /., and is, in my opinion, the one in need of "meds", not I!
* Bottom-Line: GROW UP, GEORGE M. HOWELL!
APK
P.S.=> Seriously - Don't you have ANYTHING better to do with your self & your life other than harassing/stalking others online like some juvenile child?
... apk
gmhowell "gets off" on stalking/harassing me online -> http://slashdot.org/~gmhowell/journal/266768 here on /., and I never had any hopes for you, especially after that link just above I now posted...
* Bottom-Line: GROW UP, GEORGE M. HOWELL!
APK
P.S.=> Seriously - Don't you have ANYTHING better to do with your self & your life other than harassing/stalking others online like some juvenile child?
... apk
gmhowell "gets off" on stalking/harassing me online -> http://slashdot.org/~gmhowell/journal/266768 here on /., and is, in my opinion, the one in need of "meds", not I!
* Bottom-Line: GROW UP, GEORGE M. HOWELL!
(See my subject-line above: Do yourself a favor - quit *trying* to vainly "impersonate me"... you're not good @ it!)
APK
P.S.=> Seriously - Don't you have ANYTHING better to do with your self & your life other than harassing/stalking others online like some juvenile child?
... apk
Not to mention all those pesky SEC investigators hanging around.
If not, I should introduce you two ... :-)
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
Seriously. FOSS disrobes the emperor with respect to the cost of fundamental software, driving them toward commodity status. What's MS's profit margin on operating system and office suite software sales? Still high, but progressively, as the lingering fog of FUD laid down by MS and others begins to clear, software managers are recognizing that they have options, that they don't NEED to pay for basic infrastructure software like an OS, database, office suite ... and that leads to MS loss of sales, having to reduce profit margins, etc.
Yet Apple continues to sustain very high profit margins - by virtue of selling an integrated solution. Which is what MS will be able to do for servers/desktops/laptops/tablets, if Dell enters their fold - and for phones, either through resuscitation of Dell's phone product line, or through a buyout of Nokia.
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
You're getting a Microsoft, dude!