“Dell Inc. said on Thursday it would restate four years of financial results, reducing net income for the period by as much as $150 million, after a lengthy audit found that top executives sought accounting adjustments to reach quarterly performance goals,” Reuters reports.
“Dell, the world’s second-largest personal computer maker, still faces a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, now in its second year, but legal experts said the audit would likely address most of the SEC’s concerns,” Reuters reports.
“The review ‘identified evidence that certain adjustments appear to have been motivated by the objective of attaining financial targets,’ Dell said, adding that the changes ‘typically occurred at the close of the quarter,'” Reuters reports.
MacDailyNews Take: In other words: Beleaguered Dell’s executives lied about and faked numbers so that they could hit their performance goals.
Reuters continues, “The company said the investigation raised questions about a number of accounting matters, mainly involving adjustments to reserve and accrued liability accounts. It said remedial measures, including firings, were being taken… Dell said it expected to conclude that control deficiencies identified by auditors ‘constituted material weaknesses in the company’s internal control over financial reporting.'”
MacDailyNews Take: It also constitutes a long-term material lack of ethics and morals inside beleaguered Dell.
Reuters continues, “The audit’s conclusion comes as Dell, which last year lost the top PC market-share ranking to Hewlett-Packard Co., is revamping its consumer unit and cutting 10 percent of the work force to focus on its fastest-growing and most-profitable businesses.”
MacDailyNews Take: Which would be what exactly, crap virtually useless PCs sold in Wal-Mart? Thick, ugly, OS-limited laptops? Towers festooned with ridiculous, superfluous neon lights? No, really, what’s beleaguered Dell focusing on? Perhaps Mikey ought to focus on begging Steve Jobs for Mac OS X and, after Jobs laughs in his face… drum roll, please: selling the company and giving the money back to the shareholders.
Full article here.
Who the HELL cares about Dell?
But there would be some poetic justice if they just disappeaed.
I love the smell of revenge in the morning.
dellie dell del dell
dell dell dell del dddelll ddel del del del dell del dellll
Leapord is here,
Bomb that big cats
I have another switcher at my work yeah was cool she was amazed at the icons,
We put on XP also, but she upset as she though windows XP is office like most people.
@Mr. Reese
I’d care. If they went under, one less craptard vendor to snicker at.
Actually, this is not that bad for Dell. The restatement–no more than $150 million over four years–is relatively small given Dell’s reported income during this period of $12 billion. If the SEC concludes this internal audit was thorough and well done, Dell will have dodged this bullet. Of course, this still doesn’t address how Dell will compete more effectively in the market–they’ve been losing ground, and they deserve it.
Go Apple!!
I hate Dell, but this fascination of MDN’s with the word “Beleaguered” as a description for virtually any company that competes with Apple has become rather annoying.
From the article: The restatement, affecting a small fraction of the billions of dollars Dell earned in the period…
I really enjoyed seeing Apple double Dell’s market value, and Dell losing it’s customers to HP and Apple. However, I have a hard time seeing beleaguerment here, when the restatement was a drop in a bucket.
This is very sad news, indeed. Whatever will we do? No more laughing at the coworker who sleepily packed his bathroom scale instead of his Dell laptop because they look so much alike.
But more importantly, without Dell, who can we feel superior to?
“The restatement–no more than $150 million over four years–is relatively small given Dell’s reported income during this period of $12 billion”
death by a thousand cuts my friend. a thousand cuts….
“selling the company and giving the money back to the shareholders.”
lets be honest MDN. that isn’t reasonable….
…i mean sell it for parts? what would they get, $32.75?
in about 6 months i am going to buy SCO off ebay. i have some spare change. i predict dell will be in the same place in 2 years.
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Even if Dell does shut its doors and gives the money back to the shareholders, Michael Dell would still be a hell of a lot richer than most of us. The only people who get hurt are the workers. And we would have one fewer target to take shots at.
@Too Hot,
In case you haven’t been around the Apple scene for very long, most of the media used to use “beleagured” to describe Apple, even when they were not. It got to be really annoying, much like Michael Dell’s proclaimation that Apple should sell the company and give the money back to the shareholders. MDN didn’t forget that, so they use “beleagured” for the likes of Dell as often as possible. I don’t think you’ll see them use it for HP, as HP is kind of on the rise. Sony is on the outs too, so MDN probably uses it on Sony. I look forward to the day when MDN can use it on Microsoft.
I hate Dell, but this fascination of MDN’s with the word “Beleaguered” as a description for virtually any company that competes with Apple has become rather annoying.
This is from a December 2, 1999 article on smartmoney.com:
As for the recently beleaguered Dell, the stock rebounded from the pounding it took yesterday after Merrill Lynch’s highlighted several areas of concern for Dell’s fourth quarter.
This is from a January 8, 2001 article on thestreet.com:
The Federal Reserve’s emergency rate cut last Wednesday was fortuitously timed for beleaguered Dell, coming directly on the heels of a harsh note from Lehman Brothers analyst Dan Niles.
There are more examples, although not many; but this does indicate that MacDailyNews did not coin the phrase “beleaguered Dell”. I have heard that term used on television news as well, although I can’t remember specific examples.
MW = theory…in theory, Vista is a good OS…
@Too Hot…
The “Beleaguered” references are an homage to the reporting of Apple news circa 1995-2001, when every headline began with “Beleaguered Apple…”. MDN likes to put the shoe on the other foot. It’s supposed to be funny, but needs to be read in the context of its history.
Under the Sarbanes-Oxley law, corporate executives can be held criminally liable for for accounting chicanery.
All I want to know is, does Mikey Dell go to jail?
Now that would be beleaguered!
Nothing to see here—move along folks. Dell’s problems are miniscule in comparison to Apple’s reckless, heinous & criminal acts not to mention all of the technology they copied or, let’s say, “acquired” from Microsoft & Dell.
Stay the course, Dell, you’re gonna be fine. Apple? I’m not so sure.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Jimbo, you type faster than me.
@Jimbo von Winskinheimer:
Thanks for the history. I don’t usually worry about these phrases, and maybe it is comforting to me to forget that period. The only reason I bring this up is the frequency with which the term is used on MDN. If indeed MDN is using phraseology it resented in the past, I would still be of the opinion that two wrongs don’t make a right. But reminding me of those days when Apple was the target of this phrase did put things in perspective. Thanks.
@Jeff;
Great post. I can imagine the phrase must have been used very frequently with Dell, my point was more about how often MDN uses the term in general. I probably should have made that clearer in my post.
Thanks Spark. My response to Jimbo applies to your post too.
I’ve had Macs at home since 1984, but here at work we are stuck with Dell as our sole source for computers.
Yesterday I put in a request for a Latitude 430 that has 3 features that I wish I could get in a MacBook or MBP:
1) 32GB solid state hard drive
2) 12.1″ screen
3) Built-in HSDPA card with a SIM card slot
On balance I’d still take a MacBook any day of the week for the OS, the apps and the choice, but I’d take Comet III if I could get one.
1 % error isn’t significant in terms of the effect on shareholders. That the executives tried to change the number is significant because that was how Enron went down.
Like M$, Dell is slowly losing it’s lead and Apple are catching up.
Now once the brokers have taken all their profits we should see aapl on the rise again. The interest rate cut will help too.
@Too Hot:
I agree, they do use it frequently, but I take it more as a humorous poke than anything serious. I think the media, in general, likes to use the term “beleaguered” more than is really necessary. Maybe they think it makes them sound smart…
@Zune Tang:
Read these:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q3.07/8C9E3322-921D-4A9D-BDCC-671A205906AF.html
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q3.07/C0EF7E47-676D-421F-AC12-04445A2324E9.html
Does Apple use ideas it sees? Yes. Do they pirate the actual technology? No, that’s Microsoft.
MW = arms…Ballmer’s arms are getting stronger from all the furniture tossing.
HAHAHAHAHAHAH
oh gawd , this is schweeeet
nobody wants to buy dells fucking crap company so that rules out any selling it back to the shareholders shit
OH JOY !!!!
it’s like xmas and birthday all at once for the enxt billion years
Hey, your take on Pogue’s review is complete crap. Yes, this is a different thread, but it was stunningly bad. A sad day for MDN.
One day soon dictionaries will have to be modified.
The word for this type of behavior will be Dellusional.
<h2>BELEAGUERED DELL ! !</h2>
Another word would be delusional.
@Jake
You are correct. Dell is coming out of this virtually unharmed, regardless of how much people here would like to hyperbolize the situation.