Several reports today say that computer giant, Dell has $10 billion to spend on an acquisition it will make in the coming months. According to WSJ, Dell officials have publicly said they want to do more deals, and an anonymous source has said CEO Michael Dell expects his company to acquire a "significant-sized company" in coming months, according to a person who has spoken with the CEO.
So where is all this money talk coming from? WSJ reports that on Wednesday, Dell sold $1 billion in bonds, adding to the $9 billion it already had. While the paper suggests that Dell wants to expand its data-storage and tech-services businesses, citing sources who have spoken to CFO, Brian Gladden. However, others are coming back to rumors from earlier in the year that suggested Dell might be considering buying Palm.
March was filled with reports about Dell’s plans to produce at least one, if not two smartphones. Word on the street was the company was planning on making one touchscreen phone and one with a full QWERTY keyboard. One would run WinMo and one on Google’s mobile OS, Android. However toward the end of the month, analysts began speculating that Dell may be considering a Palm buyout in order to get a jump on the smartphone market. However, now that Palm has launched the Pre, we can't imagine the company selling up before it gets a chance to see the fruits of its labor over the last couple of years.
Businessweek has a number of suggestions for Dell's mergers and acquisitions team:
- Palm
- Motorola’s phone unit
- Affiliated Computer Services
- BMC Software
- Symantec
- EMC
Which of these is most likely? Place your bets.
