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."

Comments

Motivation

[Enderandrew]

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.

Re:Motivation

[Enderandrew]

IBM ships lots of servers, but I'm assuming they're shipping most of those with Red Hat, Oracle Linux, or AIX.

I'm not sure IBM is pushing Windows Server so much.

Re:Motivation

[Archangel Michael]

Translation: "I am a VMWare jockey who juggles snapshot images as a replacement of package manager, backup, configuration management, intrusion detection, disaster recovery, ongoing maintenance, deployment, and everything else, because I don't know anything but Windows".

Translation: "I'm a snobby know-it-all jerk who thinks he can pinpoint exactly who someone is from a quick snippit/summary statement"

I manage or help manage 100+ servers across 20+ Campuses, including a full DR replecated site, and have proper backups, do proper configurations etc etc etc. They are a wide mix of Windows, Linux (my favorite) and BSD variants. I also do my share of desktop support. I didn't include those points in my original statement, because it wasn't needed. It still isn't needed to make my original point, I only make them now to show you how much of an ass you are. Not that you'll care or anything, most asses don't care, which is why they are asses in the first place.

Re:Motivation

[Archangel Michael]

What, in your opinion, is a crutch? Don't mention windows in your reply, use general terms. If you mention "windows" or subsititute any word for "Windows" I'll assume you can't define it apart from "windows", making your whole "Windows" usage as a crutch itself. I have a point IF you can define "Crutch" in generic terms.

When You Absolutely, Positively...

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

What would Michael Dell do?

[Anonymous Coward]

"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders,"

Re:go go private equity!

[Troyusrex]

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.

Re:go go private equity!

[Rob Y.]

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...