from Hacker News

Michael Dell buys back PC company he founded in $24.8bn deal

by cake on 9/12/13, 9:29 PM with 118 comments

• by Samuel_Michon on 9/13/13, 12:46 AM

  Companies that are publicly traded are under constant pressure to increase profit. DELL becoming a privately held company allows them to relieve some of that pressure, especially with Michael Dell being a large shareholder.

  The PC market is shrinking as individuals and enterprises alike are relegating more and more tasks to smartphones and tablets. The useful life of a desktop/notebook also continues to be lengthened. DELL will continue to sell computers and make profit, but unless they change their focus significantly, they won't be a company that the stock market would love.

  I think they made the right decision. if they turn around and become the next Apple or Lenovo, they could always go public again.

• by akmiller on 9/12/13, 10:42 PM

  Some of Dell's hardware seems to be getting better again. I just purchased the Dell XPS 12" and I'm mostly satisfied with the computer (although it's a bit expensive).

  However, there are two things that still drive me crazy about Dell. The first one should be easy to fix which is that the website is absolutely awful. It's slow, many links 404 and overall just a very frustrating experience. It took me awhile to get my computer ordered because of how slow the site is and I almost gave up.

  The other issue is the fact that I have to wait about 2 weeks for my computer to be built and shipped to me. Most of their computers they don't even allow many configurations so why can't they have pre-built machines ready to ship. The very day I ordered my Dell, I ordered a Macbook Air for my wife which shipped in 2 days.

  Dell has been pretty consistent force on the server side, but I'd like to see them regain some strength in the consumer laptop market again.

• by davidw on 9/13/13, 4:36 AM

  I just got an XPS 13 with Ubuntu. It's not bad, and the biggest defect, the screen, is something it has in common with pretty much everything else out there. Major props to Dell for providing a good computer that ships with Linux.

  https://plus.google.com/111292429212746362343/posts/8xUpUXeT...

• by beautybasics on 9/12/13, 10:20 PM

  Michael Dell once said that poorly performing Apple should return money to stock holders and shutdown.

  What goes around..........

• by nasalgoat on 9/13/13, 3:58 AM

  In the Enterprise space, there really isn't a solid competitor - HP and IBM equipment is, to be blunt, terrible: I had a 50% DOA rate on 20 HP servers I bought two years ago. In contrast, I've had zero on the $4M+ worth of Dell I've bought since then.

  That said, it only applies to their servers - the disk arrays and networking equipment is all garbage. I hope this change won't result in making the one thing that works worse.

• by virtualwhys on 9/13/13, 7:03 AM

  Please do NOT go under Dell.

  Own a Dell Precision M4700 workstation (absolute beast of a laptop, i7 3840QM, 32GB RAM, 2X 256GB SSD), and 2 R610 1U rack servers in colo. I've been buying Dell servers since 2005, never a problem, completely satisfied.

  Their high end consumer, and mid-to-high-range server gear is pure quality, at decent pricing to boot (if you can work a deal with sales rep., or find a decent unit on Dell Outlet that is).

• by Derbasti on 9/13/13, 7:30 AM

  I think this is terrific news. A publicly traded company has only one goal: increasing short term profit (max one year). Thus, no long term investment is possible any more.

  Buying Dell back enables them to think long and hard about the future of computing--to invest into the future. This makes me very hopeful that my next computer will be a Dell: A well-designed machine that was not just a marketing-driven reaction to what the others were doing, but a result of thorough engineering and thoughtful design.

• by jbpadgett on 9/13/13, 2:32 AM

  I feel like Dell had a great idea with the developer Linux laptop http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-lapt.... Having a mainstream PC linux alternative to Mac is likely good for the market. My thought was that the privatization move was part of a plan to offer more products like this and less of Windows, but the MS investment to support them makes that argument less viable http://www.electronista.com/articles/13/02/05/michael.dell.r....

• by vondur on 9/13/13, 5:36 PM

  I thought Dell had become big in the late 90's by mastering the supply chain and cutting costs in manufacturing. When everyone else did that too, they seemed to have lost their competitive advantage. Maybe Michael Dell has a plan for them in this "post pc" world. I don't have faith that they will, but I could be wrong.

• by nobodysfool on 9/13/13, 4:55 PM

  Funny story about Michael Dell - He was a system builder, and my dad owned a computer store that sold supplies to builders. So, Michael Dell came in, he was just about 18 years old or something, just a kid. My dad taught him how to build a computer, and Dell, he wanted to build his own power supplies. My dad told him he was crazy, especially since power supplies are so cheap, they come with the cases you bought anyway. Years later, I tried to convince my dad that mail order was the way to go, but he grumbled about having to refund people for a full 30 days after sale and how it would ruin his cashflow. That business finally went under. Then he started again, and in 1999 I show him that he could sell 2x the amount of computers if he sold on the internet. Again, same grumbling about cash flows. That business went under. Now look at Dell.

• by kenshiro_o on 9/12/13, 11:09 PM

  Carl Icahn must be a very upset activist investor now. I wish Michael Dell can improve Dell's figures - I think they do make very solid hardware but their profit margin in the consumer space are just too thin.

  They either need to push more on the services front or become the Apple for Windows powered systems, where they could sell stylish and great products at a premium.

• by wslh on 9/12/13, 9:54 PM

  I wonder why similar posts sticks or not. Is it theguardian.com domain/time? I am really interested in this news.

  My past submissions:

  - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6376364

  - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6373609

• by Pxtl on 9/13/13, 1:50 PM

  Dell has the brand power that they're not totally sunk. Honestly, I'm not happy with my Dell hardware - I have a Dell laptop with a garbage speaker that can no longer charge the battery, and it only lasted just over two years (testing replacement power-supplies and batteries proved it was the port itself that was fried). It looked nice, it was fun to use, but it wasn't built to last.

  This wouldn't be such a problem if Dell didn't go out of their way to use proprietary hacks on their hardware.

  But there are other industries where this is totally okay. Gaming. Set-top boxes. Stuff like that. People expect those devices to be highly proprietary and not serviceable.

  Dell's Ophelia project could be a good move for them - use their brand-name to sell Android-based TV boxes. That's a place where people still do the yearly upgrade treadmill.

• by nateabele on 9/12/13, 11:48 PM

  For some reason the phrase comes to mind "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out".

• by quest88 on 9/13/13, 1:08 AM

  Dell's going to have to step-up their mobile front to stay competitive.

  "Research group IDC said tablets will outsell all PCs in the three months to Christmas, and by 2015 they will regularly outsell PCs as consumers' tastes shift towards the more mobile format."

• by toblender on 9/13/13, 1:29 PM

  I wonder if Dell is trying to pull a Jobs, comeback and turn the ship around, and do something wild like neuro interface computing... Or take the game market by storm start producing XBoxOne/PS4 style consoles.

• by goombastic on 9/13/13, 8:48 AM

  Screen resolution is the biggest handicap with most laptops today. Looking at my laptop screens after using the mobile reminds me of how good the screens on mobiles are today. It made my laptop experience worse in comparison.

  Meanwhile on mobiles and tablets, touch resolution & lag are the issue.