“Michael Dell bristles when his personal-computer company is compared with Apple Inc,” Ben Worthen reports for The Wall Street Journal. “As Apple gobbled market share with the iPhone and iPad, Dell Inc.’s chief executive instead faced crumbling PC market share and stagnant revenue growth at the company he founded in his University of Texas dorm room almost 30 years ago. When conversations shifted to Apple, Mr. Dell’s body would tighten up and he would become withdrawn, said former Dell executives.”
MacDailyNews Take: Compare Dell to Apple? Now, who would do that? (smirk)
Man, Karma is one achingly beautiful bitch!
“At other times, the CEO would celebrate minor victories, like a school district’s decision to buy Dell computers,” Worthen reports. “While Dell won some of those battles, Mr. Dell refused to acknowledge that his company was ‘getting killed in the war,’ said one former Dell executive.”
MacDailyNews Take: To Michael Dell, dooming children with markedly inferior technology is a “victory.”
Worthen reports, “Now Mr. Dell may make public comparisons to Apple moot with a drastic step: taking Dell private in a leveraged buyout valued at more than $23 billion.”
MacDailyNews Take: I’m gonna take all my marbles and go home! Waaaaah!
Worthen reports, “Overall, interviews with more than 10 current and former Dell executives, plus other people who know the CEO, paint a picture of a man who appears increasingly worried about his legacy and whether the board would try to push him aside. These people said it has been years since Mr. Dell showed the enthusiasm he did when he reclaimed the title of CEO in 2007 after a short period where he served only as chairman of the PC maker.”
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote on February 26, 2009: “Mikey, Dustbin of history. Dustbin of history, Mikey.”
“When Mr. Dell returned in January 2007, he promised to reposition the company for the new age,” Worthen reports. “Mr. Dell brought in several new executives, including ones to run operations, marketing and lead Dell’s consumer push. But while sales grew during Mr. Dell’s first year back, he couldn’t sustain the momentum. The operations and marketing chiefs left after less than two years. The consumer chief left in 2010, after failed attempts at music players, phones and high-end laptops.”
Worthen reports, “Mr. Dell stopped acting like a cheerleader for the company in meetings, the people who worked with him said. And the CEO began taking a step back from public scrutiny. In 2011, he stopped making prepared remarks on Dell’s earnings calls, leaving that to his finance chief and other lieutenants… By late 2010, Mr. Dell had largely abandoned his efforts to develop products for consumers and advocated a new path to become a one-stop shop for businesses.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Help, help… multiple schadenfreude overdoses! Oh, the agony… the beautiful, gorgeous agggooonnnyyy!
So, what’ve you got to say for yourself, Mr. Bristles? Hello, Miiikkkeeeyyy?
Wanna know your what your legacy will be, Mikey? It’s a simple acronym; might as well carve up the tombstone now: SIDAGTMBTTS.
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Dear MD,
Perhaps a better marketing strategy than using animated, cloned, 1st gen., iMac look-alikes, sticking their collective tongues out at actual Apple products, would have been better after all.
Michael Dell wants to be kicked out before his company fails. It will protect what little of his positive legacy he has left. If someone else takes it over, chops it up and sells it, or brings it back to a position of global leadership he will win all the way around.