Microsoft Dell deal would restore PC makers' confidence

Good to see that Dell is taking his own advice and giving the money back to the stockholders. MS is getting into integration with hardware. Sounds like the way another computer company does things. And we saw what happened to the clones.

"Silver Lake’s portfolio includes Avaya, Go Daddy, GroupOn, Skype and Zynga"

Sounds like a death knell. Maybe they should call themselves Mercury Lake.

When Dell servers were Intel only, even in the days when the Opterons were far superior, many analysts were scratching their heads, but the recent SEC fraud case shows that Michael Dell was taking Intel to the cleaners over this agreement - Intel contributed up to 76% of the operating profit in just one Quarter - a not untidy sum of $720 MILLION. Not bad considering the only work involved was having to say "thanks, but no thanks" to phone calls from AMD. By all accounts he had Intel over a barrel, in a way that was more like a scene from the sopranos than a business agreement. Factor in that they didn't have to design, manufacture and market seperate AMD based product lines, and it was a pretty shrewd move. He was pulling in potentially hundreds of times more cash than what he could have gained by shifting Opteron boxes.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/26/after_the_dell_settlement.

He may be choosing to dance with the Devil, but he can do a mean foxtrot. I'm sue he'll be stepping on Balmers toes, not the other way around.

And the Microsoft vs Linux on servers argument is really a moot point - The majority of large enteprises (who spend the BIG bucks) don't run either on the hardware - VMWare or Xen or AN other hypervisor are on the bare metal. The OS is effectively an application these days.

Client systems might be a very different proposition thought - I'm sure a couple of billions from Balmer in a brown envelope under the table would be enough to lock Dell UEFI secure boot to Microsoft OS's only.

Buy Low / Sell High

Could this all just be as simple as buying low and selling high. Whist Dells stock is "low" buy it back, also making you able to make long term strategic decisions with out needing to inform the world and his wife and then when the economy picks back up, float the company again, making billions?

This article ponders "Who's going to lose" in the Microsoft-Dell deal.

While Dell will certainly have an advantage for Windows 8 Slates and smartphones if it goes in that direction, it is not certain that sales of the Slate will grow to any discernible degree to compete satisfactorily - at least for Microsoft - with Apple iPAD or the sales of Android based tablets that come in a myriad of sizes, form factors, and has been recently (and officially) reported to be Chinese government preference.

It is also questionable whether the "obligatory" Microsoft Windows 8 based Dell tablets, notebooks (and smartphones?) will be a bonanza for Dell in the Asian Market, where it's pricing structures, similar to that of the iPads as a necessity, are significantly higher and much less competitive with Android tablets and even Android phones if Windows 8 Phones are offered. Don't forget the exploding ChromeBook sales as a factor.

Like China, several other Asian nations - think several billion people, er sales - are stanardizing on Android, that now leaves Dell completely out in the cold.

Other Potential losers from the deal are Nokia, if Dell makes Windos 8 phones, and Dell itself for servers, since there is much greater demand and uptake in Fortune 500,and Web/Internet Windows entities for Linux/UNIX based systems, where dell once thrived. They will be completely cut off from the many lucrative Dell-Oracle Linux large scale contracts.