Maneuvering Continues For Control of Dell

An anonymous reader writes "Just as Carl Icahn's months-long, high-profile bid for control of Dell seemed to have run its course, came the announcement that Dell's board had postponed a shareholder's vote on the bid from Michael Dell and investment firm Silver Lake Partners, to take private the company that Dell had started in a University of Texas dorm room twenty nine years ago. The postponement indicated that Dell was not confident that their $24.4 billion ($13.65 per share) deal had the necessary votes. Icahn and his main ally, Southeastern Asset Management, claim that the proposed deal undervalues the company and its upside potential; Icahn's latest proposal is to keep the company public, but to offer $14 per share plus upside warrants, for every share tendered by stockholders. The latest wrinkle is apparent tension within the Dell/Silver Lake team; Silver Lake reportedly feels entitled to the $450 million buyout fee specified in the deal's language, if any alternative bid from Icahn succeeds within a year; Dell and the board feel that Silver Lake would only be entitled to expenses in that case, perhaps amounting to a few tens of millions USD. The Bloomberg story also reports that Michael Dell has at times been unable to reach his Silver Lake counterpart (a longtime friend) on the phone to discuss possibly sweetening the bid."

I have an idea

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Anyone wanting to buy Dell should have to set up and use one of their awful products for 1 day and then call tech support once. There would be zero buyers. Seriously, buying Dell is like buying a car just based on the company's marketing and image without actually looking under the hood to find out it's a complete piece of crap (in other words a Saturn or Kia). Except Dell is more like a Yugo on craigslist with a flashy paint job and astroturfed reviews. They're 2nd to last in laptop quality, dead last in support quality, and no business with an IT purchaser who has any kind of clue even considers them as a vendor anymore.

So if you're reading this and thinking "hey, I buy from Dell all the time!" first of all, look at your hardware failure numbers. Secondly, fire yourself. Third, note that last time a business I was contracted to work at for a computer replacement project ordered 120 Dell laptops ($800 models btw), 20 were RMAed right out of the box with hardware defects. I guarantee that cost Dell more than it would have to simply build them all with good parts in the first place.