
Dell is returning to the ownership of its eponymous founder. And I for one think that could be very good news for the PC industry.Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that. A combination of Michael Dell, Silver Lake Partners investment fund, a couple of billion dollars thrown in by Microsoft and a whole lot of debt adds up to a $24.4 billion deal.Any time Microsoft sticks an oar in the conspiracy theories really begin to flow. And Maybe Microsoft has some master plan at play. We'll see.Better, faster, cheaperFor now, the reason I find the deal interesting involves innovation and making new technology cheaper, things the PC market arguably has lost sight of.A swarm of mobile devices are currently feasting on the PC's market share and it's high time the PC began to swat some of the pests. So, where does boring old corporate Dell come into the picture?In its current state, it doesn't. As a public, listed company in thrall to the markets and under constant pressure to deliver every business quarter, Dell looks like an enormous cash-generating zombie.OK, it's rolled the dice here and there on a few vaguely interesting products, like the failed Dell Streak tablet. But for the most part, there's been very little to get excited about in recent years.Third comes right after second. And firstRight now, Dell remains the world's third largest PC maker behind HP and Lenovo, but has been on the slide. The latest figures from Gartner show Dell shipments plummeting by 15 to 20 per cent
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