Dell is going private - $25 billion buyout

[GoodBytes]

 

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Michael Dell has finally been able to get back the company from its shareholders, reports The Verge

 

 

Michael Dell has finally wrestled control of Dell, the company he founded, back from its shareholders. A board vote this morning ends month of speculation on whether it would approve Michael Dell's multibillion-dollar offer to take the company private. Dell's offer saw strong competition in the form of a counteroffer from "activist investor" Carl Icahn, but Icahn ultimately pulled the plug on his attempt, saying that it would be "almost impossible" to win today's shareholder vote.

 

[...]

 

What does this mean for Dell as a company? Announcing the acquisition back in February, Michael Dell said it will "open an exciting new chapter for Dell, our, customers, and team members," delivering "immediate value." He intends to shift the company more heavily toward enterprise services as the PC industry continues to slow in the wake of tablets and smartphones. It's no secret that making the turnaround a success will be hard work, and among Michael Dell's reasons for going private was so that the change wouldn't have to happen in the public's eye.

 

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4722366/dell-vote-privatization-25-billion-buyout-complete

 

 

I think this is excellent news. While I don't expect Dell to change overnight. (more like 5+ years), it does mean that Dell will no longer require to satisfy their quarterly report, and start making less profitable computers and services, in order to improve Dell brand and image, by making much better computers and enterprise solutions/services, all by actually doing that they seams to not have anymore: do R&D, to innovate.

 

[helping]

Thank god. Maybe now they might put out something decent.
 

 

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It's actually a pretty big deal going from public to private, especially when you consider the direction of the company.

[qwertywarrior]

awesome news

 

im looking forward for great tablets and laptops from them ( on the consumer side)

[obsidian1200]

I really don't care if they're going private, just whether or not they plan to continue making consumer computers. There were rumors that they were planning on pulling out of consumer products and focus on enterprise solutions.

[wpirobotbuilder]

Goddammit I was about to post this.

 

This is great news for my co-workers at Dell and I. If Carl Ichan had won, it's very likely the company would have been chopped up into pieces.

 

Regardless, Carl's walking away with tens of millions from the buyout, which is ridiculous.

[felixbearpig]

i thought this happened like 3 months ago ?

[Crackhead1]

nice!

[mymouthandi]

All of the Dell PCs I have used over the last few years have been awful - Desktops, laptops, workstations, the whole lot have sucked and I haven't had or used one that hasn't blue screened on needed a Windows reinstall. Maybe I am just unlucky but from my experience Dell really doesn't make good systems. 

 

However, with the buyout being official does excite me a little. They now have the freedom to be experimental and spend more money on R&D. This is rarely a bad thing. 

[JaeDee884]

super excited. its always better for a big company to be able to focus on more than short term profits. so they can invest more on innovation. hopefully Dell will rise again.

[brownninja97]

Thank god. Maybe now they might put out something decent.

 

It's actually a pretty big deal going from public to private, especially when you consider the direction of the company.

Their newest xps models are bloody awesome, for the price they destroy any oem company, a pc that used have a gt 620 now has a gtx 645(rebadged 560). Building will be better but DIY is cheaper with everything but i dont see everyone making their own cars.

[Emperor_Piehead]

As long as they continue the ultrasharp line I'm happy 

[IdeaStormer]

Either way they've lost sight of how to fit into the datacenter and for some part desktop. Why? They don't stick to industry standards which makes it a pain or at least a mess to setup a Dell server in a rack, desktop-wise they go with proprietary components which no one can buy in a pinch to get something to work so they end up in the trash heap. We dumped them a while ago, they will have a hard time getting back in with the competition these days.

 

RIP...

[GoodBytes]

Dell desktop doesn't use propitiatory components. Maybe they PSU is smaller shape than normal... and motherboard screw holes are different, but that's about it. If you are changing the motherboard... then usually it's because you want to upgrade..so why keep the same case? PSU I can understand, but still... beside if you really wanted you can make the PSU fit, unless you have those special mini size.. which why you want to change the PSU? To put a Titan that won't fit?

[Emperor_Piehead]

Dell desktop doesn't use propitiatory components. Maybe they PSU is smaller shape than normal... and motherboard screw holes are different, but that's about it. If you are changing the motherboard... then usually it's because you want to upgrade..so why keep the same case? PSU I can understand, but still... beside if you really wanted you can make the PSU fit, unless you have those special mini size.. which why you want to change the PSU? To put a Titan that won't fit?

No real need to do some propitiatory component unless your trying to go for an odd form factor like the new mac pro.

[Thunderjolt]

Lets see what Dell comes up with now.

[Whiskers]

All of the Dell PCs I have used over the last few years have been awful - Desktops, laptops, workstations, the whole lot have sucked and I haven't had or used one that hasn't blue screened on needed a Windows reinstall. Maybe I am just unlucky but from my experience Dell really doesn't make good systems. 

 

However, with the buyout being official does excite me a little. They now have the freedom to be experimental and spend more money on R&D. This is rarely a bad thing. 

 

My 5 year old Dell OptiPlex 755 has been folding for the last couple of months without pause. It's never exceeded 46 degrees C in temperature, has yet to randomly shut down and is still operating without trouble. Prior to its folding it was active for a solid 2 years with a cumulative powered-off time of just a week or two.

 

Dell's business computers might not be exceedingly fast (to put it mildly ) but they are tremendously reliable.

[Mauri]

Pretty great news. I might actually recommend Dell for the first time ever within the coming years

[wpirobotbuilder]

Dell won't just be transforming the PC business, a lot of work will be put into enterprise solutions.

[Lukiose]

Excellent news! I never really held anything against Dell so things can only go uphill from here, i actually like their xps series.

[Yoinkerman]

Good it means Dell can stay alive by making money, instead of necessarily having to have ever increasing revenues/profits/margins/etc that's completely unsustainable yet somehow a viable business model until it isn't and it gets chopped into little bits.

[mymouthandi]

My 5 year old Dell OptiPlex 755 has been folding for the last couple of months without pause. It's never exceeded 46 degrees C in temperature, has yet to randomly shut down and is still operating without trouble. Prior to its folding it was active for a solid 2 years with a cumulative powered-off time of just a week or two.

 

Dell's business computers might not be exceedingly fast (to put it mildly ) but they are tremendously reliable.

Maybe I am just unlucky. 

[Whiskers]

Maybe I am just unlucky. 

 

Maybe. Their consumer-grade stuff has been pretty unreliable in my experience though. Then again most consumer-grade stuff is...

[GoodBytes]

Agreed. Most consumer seek for the lowest price possible, with the highest numbers on the specs possible.

They don't care about nothing else. Quality, plug placements, smart engineering, cooling engineering, etc. All doesn't mater, or care. These consumer grade laptop are designed to be sold on big box retail store. So, and that's where most of the consumer above go buy stuff.

 

You want a nice system from Dell, HP, Lenovo.. buy from business section. Most are junk free, and OS disk provided (or you can request it, usually free or a nominal fees).

[Whiskers]

Agreed. Most consumer seek for the lowest price possible, with the highest numbers on the specs possible.

They don't care about nothing else. Quality, plug placements, smart engineering, cooling engineering, etc. All doesn't mater, or care. These consumer grade laptop are designed to be sold on big box retail store. So, and that's where most of the consumer above go buy stuff.

 

You want a nice system from Dell, HP, Lenovo.. buy from business section. Most are junk free, and OS disk provided (or you can request it, usually free or a nominal fees).

 

Agreed.

[Mooshi]

Does this mean I can stop looking down at Alienware as a fancy Dell?