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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
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that a fool and his money are soon parted.
Is Michael Dell shutting down the company and giving the money back to the shareholders??? :)
...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.
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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.
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They would be in talks with HP. Just sayin'.
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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.
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,"
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?
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 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.
"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.
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...
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.