02.14.13
Dell Might Still Dodge Stealth Microsoft Takeover
Summary: Upset investors can still prevent Microsoft from ‘pulling a Novell’ on Dell
Ashlee Vance, formerly a FOSS-centric writer at The Register, has an interesting hypothesis about Microsoft Dell, which VAR Guy keeps opposing whilst identifying unhappy investors:
Done deal? Hardly. Dell’s (NASDAQ: DELL) $24.4 billion deal to go private apparently faces pushback from at least fo-.ur major shareholders, Reuters reported. And don’t forget: A special Dell committee is managing a 45-day “go-shop” period, during which the committee is actively soliciting alternative bids. So who will wind up owning Dell, and how will the current variables impact partners and the PC maker?
The VAR Guy is no fan of Microsoft and he believes that the abusive monopolist uses fake shortages (as hype generation strategy) for reasons he summarised here. Walt Mossberg is still unsatisfied with the latest hardware that has a Microsoft badge (the one with fake shortages) based on his article which is not a favourable review, again.
Nokia and Dell are deep in the mud unless they dump Microsoft. Already, the monopolist alienates mobile partners and soon it will be OEMs, too. There are other implications,. As Chris Hall puts it: “Let’s say it finally happens and the big OEMs get tired of dealing with Microsoft and decide to make Windows only one choice of several on new computers. Not a world like we have now, where the likes of Dell halfheartedly offer half baked and broken installs of Ubuntu, installs that need serious tweaking before they’ll work. Not that world, but a pretend world of Linux being offered across all models, with a choice between two or three distros. You know, OEMs giving Linux exactly the same treatment as they give Windows today.” █
