Rumor: Dell Itching to Buy a Company
Dell is sitting on a big stack of cash and looking to go shopping.
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.
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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.
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neiroatopelcc Let em buy GM - that'd solve a lot of problems - and cars could be ordered over the internet with whatever mods chosen in a drop down list - like their computers :)Reply
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Upendra09 ^^ good ideaReply
I think dell should spend their 10 billion into using better computer parts. every Dell has been sucky for me. -
Vettedude I would buy Motorola. It could get them into phones real quick. Maybe Nvidia would bedextermatWhatever dell is buying, im not touching with a 10 foot pole.yuk!!Dell has gotten better (A little.) My Dell Studio Slim works just fine and my sister loves her Studio notebook.Reply -
Upendra09 I hope they don't buy NVidia, they make it suck, just like Alienware. And if they bought AMD they would go out of business. I bet the EU is going to make an antitrust case if they buy anyone important, for monopolizing the market, like MS supposedly does w/ its IE8 bundleReply
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hellscook They could spend that money on good tech support. Sitting on that much cash and treating your bread and butter like crap is plain wrong.Reply -
Blessedman I wonder if they could afford to buy ASUS. That would be about the wisest acquisition they could make. They need to buy someone that will help them innovate as this company is in desperate need to do something new and bold. Drive the market or be driven by it.Reply