IBM and Dell Announce $16 billion Technology Pact

Jason Spangler writes "IBM and Dell announced a technology pact in which Dell will buy storage, microelectronics, networking, and display technology from IBM. The deal also includes patent cross-licensing and collaboration in future product development."

stock?

[Kyt]

According to my sources, IBM bought 40% stock in Dell. This isn't an agreement, it's the beginning of a buyout.

An opportunity?

[tak*]

Doubtful, but it would be awesome. They would have to be CHRP machines so they can run all the OSs available for the PPC. It would also force Apple to allow cloning again. Dell would be too big for Apple to stop and they would end up being more like IBM; a technology company.
Remember in the early 80's when IBM was the king of hardware? Well PC clones sure took care of that.

Well, back to reality; like I said, doubtful.
Now we're nothing.

IBM gets $16 Billion.

[timur]

The deal is for Dell to buy IBM products. So IBM gets $16B of Dell's money.

--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address

They have LOTS of them...

[Svartalf]

Went and interviewed with their portables line (didn't work out- HR jinxed the deal) they had plaques with all the patent covers etched into them on their walls, something like a 50-100 of them- all for the notebook line. They do a hell of a lot of R&D for the portables line.

But what does this mean for IBM?

[Visigothe]

Sure, dell gets all the goodies from IBM, but what does big blue get out of it?

Huh? Dell has patents?

[Guy Harris]

A search on the IBM patent server [ibm.com] found about 12 patents assigned to "Dell Computer", most of which, from the title, look mechanical or electrical.

Huh? Dell has patents?

[Guy Harris]

Increase your search size..You will see the rest of it

If by "search size" you mean "Hits per page", that didn't help - I tried it with Netscape-on-NT, Netscape-on-Solaris, IE-on-NT, and IE-on-Solaris, and all of them gave me a screen that said "12 of 2421813 matched" (I assume that means it searched through 2,421,813 patents, not that Dell has that many) and faint "First", "Prev", "Next", and "Last" arrows around the "1-12" on the bottom, none of which were active.

This was an "Advanced Text Search", of "U.S. Front Pages and Claims", from "earliest" to "present", with "Dell Computer" in the "Assignee" field, and all other fields left unchanged. Perhaps only 12 patents have that particular value in that particular field, and other Dell patents have something else.

Huh? Dell has patents?

[Jacco de Leeuw]

Considering that Dell has always boasted that they don't do R&D and by following "industry standards" (i.e. Wintel) they keep the costs down, this announcement doesn't make sense...

I agree with CNNfn that Dell's service for servers isn't up to specs. When we asked about servers with a couple of special requirements (no OS installed, Linux compatible etc.) they didn't even respond. The only thing they did was to put me on their mailinglist and now I get my monthly share of snailmail spam... :-(

I don't see what IBM has to gain out of this. Except for the money perhaps.

Joker

[AShuvalov]

Dell is getting a chip manufacturing technology, while it still works with Intel. Dell definitely don't want to became second AMD and loose all partnership with Intel unless...
Is there any hidden joker here? Maybe Transmeta?

Wow....

[skroz]

I got an explanation on this from a dell representative last night. It seems that Dell bought a bunch of ISA V.90 modems, and won't put them in PIII systems 'cause they're trying to make their systems 100% PCI. You can't even ask them to put 'em in... the MBs don't have ISA slots. Well, they have a shared ISA/PCI slot...

An opportunity?

[Snibor Eoj]

Now if only Dell would starting making PPC machines, that'd be a nice result of this alliance... :-)

(Did I get first post? )

Distribution and services, the two go together

[LL]

Amateurs argue tactics, generals strategies, professionals logistics ....

It really combines the strengths of the two, Dell in their distribution channel, and IBM in the raw technology and high-end corporate integration and services. So R&D trickles down and Dell moves large volumes meaning costs remain low.

If the already low margins keep on getting squeezed, I would expect to see more strategic alliances. Highly speculative, but technically feasible (but I won't comment on corporate culture clash) alliances that could be forced upon the vendors in the future might be ....

Apple - Beos? (multimedia, education, consumer)
Samsung/Mitsuibitsi? Compaq - Alpha/PC line
SGI - Sony/NEC? (graphics, MIPS, though the US government might have a fit about this)
Fujitsu - Sun (Fujitsu already uses Sparc chips for their MPPs)

Intel and Microsoft can survive on their own but what about companies such as HP? Packard-Bell?, not to mention all those not so well known Asian ones. The above is just a guess but based on past history, sooner or later the growth will slow through natural business cycle downturns and the companies will have to expand to global scale. The real fun will start when the telcos (who are the only true long-term money spinners) start getting into the fray.

LL

nice.

[zee]

It drove the stock market today pretty well, for a
rally in a dow. It's a perfect example of a novice (Dell) taking advice from an old pro (IBM)