※My Strabucks Name Jan 9, From guard shack to global giant Jan 16, A private life Jan 21 這三篇的回顧可以連起來讀。

一提到DELL，大家一想到就是1984年，在德州奧斯汀從PCs limited開始的創辦人Michael Dell所創立的品牌，就是很會組裝電腦，美國家譽戶曉的電腦通，匯集美國所有電腦相關業界的博士的集合。筆者一提到Dell，就是筆者小時候讀的美語補習班的阿姨她家的蕭美琴委員在用的。她每次都會推銷說，美國的科技產品就是好，這幾年，從很大牌子的Westinghouse、Whirlpool，Dell、Motorola、Google(倒是沒有蘋果)、Microsoft的微軟手機(筆者沒那麼多錢，買前代Nokia的)，到Sandisk、Kingston、Lexar、Seagate、WD、Lexma、Razer、Nextbook(還真的差點買到怪塑膠機)、Nextbit。車子呢，就是要福特的，要通用汽車附近牌子的，生活用品要用3M的.......回想起來，這種傾銷倒也影響筆者如何跟北京說，在川普當選總統後，中國政府應該要怎麼作貿易上政策的變動，不一定講是作貿易戰，但是筆者想起來小時候的美國豆汁、果醋，筆者有建議過美國政府列出的農產品乾脆全買; 仿效之前胡錦濤訪問美國的時候，和波音公司簽訂豪華客機來作平衡兩國貿易的想法。

這篇是2013年1月的文章和回覆，很快到今年上半年，Dell在台北開了第一間直營旗艦店，仿效蘋果在101大樓的直營專賣店，但筆者不是很看好這個牌子的銷售成績。戴爾電腦的機子，印象中和宏碁維修率比稍低，但是價格會稍貴一至兩成一些，外觀沒有多變化，雖然輕薄度而言，即使搭載顯示卡，也是有所成功，但是品質上按照測試程式跑分沒有突出，銷售的拓點有限，保固方面沒有比較特別的。又一比較電競機種，Alienware真是太貴了，人家宏碁Swift 7是容納太空科技，這間戴爾胡亂貼外星價格。

2013年戴爾決定下市後，戴爾的業務一直偏在B2B收購或出售作成長，10月30日時Michael Dell宣佈擁有75%股份，讓公司重新組織流程營運。2015-16間Dell短暫擁有EMC，一間資料儲存公司製造商。基本上戴爾是靠和中小企業的設計解決方案聞名，並配合家用/個人電子產品消費並重。戴爾雖然銷路比其他廠商少，但是生產廣佈全球，分散了投資人的風險，一開始創業時Michael Dell就很重基本定義來設計電腦軟硬件配置，算起來十年內，和其他廠商相比，較具競爭力的是XPS系列，尤其是Ultrabook時期所生產者，雖然是Home作業系統，但內附軟體和主機板是設計給基層商用人士的。在寫這篇時，正巧遇到相近業種的索尼也在作財務重整。

Dell

A private life?

Jan 15th 2013, 7:51 by M.G. | SAN FRANCISCO

DELL’S days as a public company could be coming to an end. According to a report published by Bloomberg on January 14th, the world’s third-largest maker of personal computers (PCs) is exploring a potential buyout with at least two private-equity firms. Although there is no guarantee that a deal will take place, Dell’s shares soared after news of the discussions surfaced.

When Michael Dell, the firm’s founder, took back the chief executive role at the struggling company in 2007 after serving as its chairman for a number of years, hopes were high that he would be able to revive its fortunes. He and his colleagues have since worked hard to diversify the company’s revenues, splashing out billions of dollars on cloud-computing and storage businesses. But over the past 12 months Dell’s shares have fallen by almost a third as investors’ faith in it has been shaken by a couple of trends.

One is the rapidly growing popularity of new mobile-computing devices such as tablet computers that have led to a faster than expected decline in demand for PCs. According to IDC, a research company, sales of PCs fell over the holiday period for the first time in more than five years. That is bad news for Dell, which built its reputation on the PC business and is still heavily reliant on hardware sales.

Another trend that has shareholders worried is the rise of aggressive Asian competitors such as Taiwan’s Acer and China’s Lenovo (the latters leap to global fame was highlighted in last week’s issue of The Economist). According to Gartner, another research outfit, Lenovo leapfrogged Hewlett-Packard in the third quarter of 2012 to become the world’s largest seller of PCs, leaving Dell in third place. Lenovo and other Asian manufacturers have learnt from Dell, which pioneered a business model based on an extremely efficient supply chain to keep prices low. Unfortunately for the American firm, its Asian rivals have been able to beat it at the game it pretty much invented.

Mr Dell, who still owns almost 16% of the firm, has made it clear in the past that he has considered taking it private. The trends outlined above have no doubt made that prospect more appealing recently. But a deal will not be easy to pull off. Although private equity outfits such as Texas Pacific Group and Silver Lake Partners have long taken an interest in technology, Dell will be a particularly large morsel to swallow. Before news of a possible buyout emerged, the company’s market capitalisation stood at some $19 billion.

That may not deter buyout mavens who believe that the company’s strategy of bulking up its cloud-based services will be easier to execute out of the public eye. The fact that Dell still has billions of dollars of cash in its coffers is also likely to endear it to buyout groups, at least one of which now has some excellent insights into the computer maker. Last week Dell confirmed that Dave Johnson, its head of mergers and acquisitions, was joining Blackstone, a leading light in the buyout world.

A private life?

Jan 21st 2013, 09:00

I know a vendor selling Dell’s product and other items of American 3C very well in Taiwan. This “all-dimensional clerk” of US calls Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan’s DPP legislator and wanting more meat recently after her first failure of loving attack to another DPP’s Liu Chien-guo. In addition to her American language cram school in my childhood, I know this big customer of US brand with the view of political ideology and the favourite of high-tech business. For me, a Japan-preference lover, her so-called and smelly big US-inperialism with a bit sorry product, including Dell’s, always make me burst into laughter.

As she said, she makes familiar to Michael Dell and his followings. Besides, he recently turns attitude of IT into aspect of conservation, very different from other IT company. With a view to the quality of Dell’s laptop and affiliated items, as a whole during the period of Windows Vista and 7, Dell did good grade and so-so sales number but made a remark on higher cost than Japan, South Korea and Taiwan’s company. The similar situation happened in Lenovo concerned then as well. Therefore, it is no big change of market share price for several years. Yesterday, the share price of Dell Inc.(DELL) was USD. 12.84 in NASDAQ. It’s an ordinary number to say Dell really needs to go private for a gambling, but Dell at least has yet faced any terrible sufferings like last year’s HP, Motorola, and other American enterprises that had to convert the name list of management. It’s funny to see the lack of reason why Steve Ballmer still stay in Microsoft’s CEO.

Of course, Dell can learn Sony’s latest behaviour of selling buildings. Sony acquired USD. 1.1 billion from the case of Manhattans US headquarter rendering Sony profitable enough to rebuild its R&D in IT and entertainment. With the recovery of US economy, gradually, Dell and other American high-tech firms may turns to a better situation when it comes to the competing with foreigner except for those who owns no strategy.

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