“Dell, the personal-computer maker that lost almost a third of its value last year, is in buyout talks with private-equity firms, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The shares surged.” So yeah, like I said – no wonder Microsoft has entered the hardware business. The PC OEM era is over.
So Dell is going to be chopped up and have all of it’s employees thrown out without so much as a 2 weeks notice?
Edited 2013-01-15 06:38 UTC
It’s really not like me to defend Dell of all companies, but I really don’t get this.
I remember seeing a graph a few weeks ago in some other story about this topic, but I have no idea where I saw it. It showed that Dell’s market cap had fallen by about a third, but sales were relatively flat. They were down by low single digits year over year.
I know sales aren’t indicative of profit, but for a pretty mature company like Dell, I’d think if their sales are steady they should be good. So what gives? Are they suddenly mismanaging money? Is previous mismanagement suddenly being discovered? Or is this speculation?
Even though they may be projected to ship fewer boxes in the future, Dell gets a good chunk of cash from organizational support contracts. And afaik, those aren’t really in danger.
Can anyone explain? I’m basing off of experience working with Dell about 5 years ago. Have things changed that much?
I’m not an economist, but the idea seems to be that a company like Dell is an interesting target for private-equity firms, just because it offers a solid base (stable sales and stock valuation) in a declining market (which enhances the vulnerability of competing companies in this market). With enough fresh higher-risk capital it can be turned into (or even broken up into) one or more smaller parts that each can pursue a more aggressive expansion strategy with a higher valuation.
For a less mature company or in a stable or growing market the risks of such a disruptive strategy might not way up to the potential return on investment.
Share prices are based on prospects for future growth. Dell has limited prospects for growth so its share price suffers.
Dell doesn’t really innovate or lead in anything. That just means they’ll get beat up if anything changes, which it has and they have
There is still market room for good standards-based hardware, it just can’t be a beige box forever
Asus, razr, and other little PC makers have grown large from nothing because they did something. What has dell done. Dell done shit
Bought last year 3 laptops, Dell Vostro 3555 with AMD APU A8-3500M with integrated GPU Radeon HD 6620G. This beast have everything you can expect : USB 3, BlueTooth, Wifi-N, Ethernet Gigabit, eSata, HDMI, VGA, SDHC, ExpressCard 34mm, antiglare screen, …
The problem is the hardware support of parts. One year after, it’s hardly even possible to get them a back-lit keyboard that was not available at time of purchase. And when they finally found some, it’s out of guarantee so with higher price, and they even fail to make a correct invoice (I asked for 2, they make the first with 1, the second with 3)
And since then, they ditched away the AMD APUs altogether. So no more Dell hardware for me, thanks. Otherwise they are very good machines, as well conceived than Apple’s hardware, very neat engineering. Perhaps outsourced to Foxxcon as well ?
Kochise
Is there any company with normal boxes like Dell? I have some of these, including two older PIII1000 and they are working like horses. And keyboards are awesome.
I think Dell have Sun’s syndrome. They make too good products.
Edited 2013-01-15 08:39 UTC
Yeah, that was Dell five years ago. Have you had the misfortune to deal with any of Dell’s more recent consumer-oriented hardware? Those things absolutely do not work like horses. Cost-cutting components, bad drivers, awful service, poor case designs that result in overheating, etc. You can still get good Dell hardware, but only if you buy their business class products which are far more expensive than the cheap hardware most associate with the company. If you buy a consumer-grade Dell now, expect it to last a year and then develop problems and, unless you’re competent to fix it yourself (which I’m guessing most visitors to this site are), you’re going to get the endless runaround when you want them to fix it under warranty.
I’ve actually had very good experiences with Dells warranty support. I have 3 Dells in the house, 2 laptops and a desktop, all older now, and when the hard drive died in the desktop, Dell had no problem shipping me a new one, and letting me ship the old one back.
I expected arguments, having to reinstall Vista, all the normal support bullshit. They surprised me. The phone call itself took less then 20 minutes.
I have been buying Dell laptops for years now, because I love their financing, easy, quick, and if you pay it off before the term, no interest.
Depends whether it is business line or a consumer line.
My XPS 15 laptop is solid. Works great, too.
Well, I had a DVD drive issue, and at first they wanted to claim it was a software issue (And, thus, something I did), but after I politely insisted it wasn’t, they overnighted me a box to send it, and a week later it had been repaired.
“What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders,”
Michael Dell, October 1997. about Apple Computer
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-203937.html
Michael Dell, year ago about Apple:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3YDKONQfis (1:30)
This is why I hate shareholders’ driven decisions.
There are many companies that get destroyed just because their current profit level is not in sync with shareholders wishes.
People should really stop bringing that up. Apple WAS dead. The ONLY reason it came back to life was Jobs. That’s it.
Nobody could’ve seen that coming. Stop trying to make it seem as if Dell was some sort of rambling idiot – he was exactly right at the time. It’s easy and cheap to look back 16 years and claim smug superiority.
There are lots of people that only know the Mac OS X Apple it seems.
and it seems that lots of people do not know for computers that had badged from my avatar
Edited 2013-01-15 16:51 UTC
I miss those days.
Finally with a “;)” …did my pointing out 80s wasn’t all roses worked? ;p
Bonus trivia:
What does “atari” mean?
Ironically, I learned the meaning of “atari” in high school and it took me about three years before events made me stop to consider that, maybe, the company I’d vaguely heard of while playing NES and SNES games as a young child might have chosen that name because it was a pre-existing word.
…but then that’s the problem with getting familiar with words at a young age. You often forget to re-evaluate them once you’re old enough to appreciate their context.
Edited 2013-01-15 19:41 UTC
Atari was well known when I grew up, but long after their demise did I learn the meaning.
Well, we had no Wikipedia or Internet access back then.
If anyone of you is bored it can be fun to find out how companies got their names. Epson, Sharp and Sony are very nice ones.
touché!
I mention Atari in response to Thom: “People should really stop bringing that up. Apple WAS dead.” – yes, for most people Apple was on exactly same path as Atari, Commodore, IBM (in PC sector), NeXT, SUN, SGi… and all other GREAT companies… and before that, it was truly amazing time until…
…they all went down thanks to Microsoft (and sheep-like users)!
but Apple/Steve Jobs prove that MIRACLES are possible
– return of Apple to mainstream computing AND beginning of Microsoft downfall today is biggest thing ever happened in computer world for last three decades
…and I am very happy that WORLD finally recognized RIGHT path!
for end, let me quote Douglas Adams which beautifully illustrate 80s and 90s:
“The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he, by peddling second rate technology, led them into it in the first place, and continues to do so today.”
Edited 2013-01-15 20:29 UTC
I agree, with one exception: NeXT wasn’t really a great company. They had some interesting ideas and technology, but could barely shed their start-up skin.
It was a rather small company. If it hadn’t been for Steve Jobs and his return to Apple I suspect most people would never have known about it.
My graduation project was to port a graphics framework from the (evaluated as) defunct NeXTSTEP (Objective-C) to the newly shiny Windows 98 (C++).
With such experience, you could help GNUstep I guess? ;p
I have to admire the GNUStep guys as they seem to been doing their work since I can remember Linux exists, or even earlier.
Also a constant presence at FOSDEM.
However I am not that big fan of Objective-C.
I think most people don’t know about NeXT, anyway – only ~geeks do.
But there’s one thing for which we would remember it even without the return of Steve Jobs to Apple: WWW started on a NeXT machine.
Yeah, but that’ still geeks only knowledge.
Also I don’t think a NeXT machine was really needed, any other networked computer would have made it possible too.
Interestingly Apple had and got rid of HyperCard, which could have served as the foundation of a hyperlinking Internet.
That was my point, “we” ~= geeks. And while NeXT machine wasn’t strictly needed, that’s what was used and hence can be remembered. :p
But BTW, it looks like it perhaps had some influence on how HTML looks… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb#Technical_information
WRT HyperCard, you might be interested in those two links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViolaWWW#Background
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_web_browser#1980s_to_ea…
Never mind that. I have this week off to clean the garage, shed, attic and other rooms. In the attic I found an original tape that says “BASICODE 2”. it was released in June 1984.
Side one has “translation programs” and a number of systems are listed.
Side two contains “example programs”.
https://twitter.com/wettingfeld/status/292337677951438848/photo/1
I think it comes from a box of Commodore 64 stuff someone once gave to me many years ago.
I don’t know how bad this would influence computer prices, because PC OEM were the ones driving them down.
But I really miss the Software+Hardware (without bloatware) experience that the other systems had, before the PC became the only game in town.
Sure it has portability issues, as the older from us can remember, or see again in the mobile space. On the other hand it really forces everyone, even against their will, to play nicer with each other in data formats.
kovacm, you are detached from reality. ALL custom platforms died out, also Macintoshes (they are now completely generic PCs under the hood, with mostly generic software).
Wintel ecosystem was and is simply better than those “GREAT companies” http://www.osnews.com/thread?522221
Dell started by manufacturing their own. They then outsourced production to cut costs – it was all the rage and all good business schools were recommending it.
Roll on a few years; Asus had the outsourcing contracts and have gone on to use their own branding to eat Dell’s lunch and dinner.