Useless Conversation

[Ironwood]

Office 2013.  It's like Satan.

Avoid.

[ghost]

But it looks all fun, like Windows 8. 

[Soln]

Well there goes Sat.  45 mins in a 40 person deep line just to return DVRs.  DIAF Comcast. 

[HaemishM]

But it looks all fun, like Windows 8. 

Windows 8 looks like fun in the same way on oozing penis makes STD's look like fun.

[ghost]

Have a lo of contact with those, Haemish?

[HaemishM]

Yes, Windows 8 has been close enough that my penis retracted in fear. 

[Abagadro]

Received a card today indicating that I went over 5 gallons in donated blood. 

[Rasix]

I can't do that (in fairness, my blood has also been tested and deemed unworthy). So, bravo.  In my life I've donated 2 units: to myself.   My dad hit some pool of blood milestone as well. Had to stop giving recently due to health issues.

[Ironwood]

I too went to do the donation thing in my younger days only to be told if I did that again I might die.

So bravo sir and thank you for your contribution.

[ghost]

Wow.  Dell is going private. 

[Lantyssa]

Maybe that'll get them back into shape.  I once liked Dell.

[Trippy]

Karma's a bitch

[Merusk]

Karma's a bitch

Pft.. Dell and his investors are going to make a shit ton more money doing this.  They're taking the huge cash reserve Dell was keeping to keep investors happy and cashing themselves huge checks.  Think any of that cash reserve is going to the workers? Fuck no.

Then they get to play whatever short or long game they want to not having to worry about investors complaining about ROI or protests from employees scaring off investors.

[Sky]

Great news. I hope they're very successful after this and more companies abandon the worst gambling scam in history.

[Hammond]

I think its a good choice for Dell. Honestly the stock market is not treating computer manufactures very well even though they still sell a ton of stuff. Being one of the big investors is Microsoft is pretty telling. Between them investing in Nokia (no real return there yet) and Dell I am curious what the long term game plan in Redmond is.

[Yegolev]

It doesn't appear to be "create operating systems" anymore.

[Merusk]

Money's in the hardware, everyone knows that.  Let the kids play with the software side of things.

 

[Chimpy]

Pretty much everything I have heard suggests that MS wants to ensure Dell doesn't exit the PC market.

[Nebu]

I thought Dell got kicked in the nads when Asus decided that they could make money building computers to sell with their own parts rather than just selling parts to Dell. 

[Yegolev]

Gartner says Dell was 3rd in PC sales in Q3 2012.  But perhaps?

Without Dell, it's mostly Lenovo and HP worldwide.  In the US, it's HP and Apple.   Apple doesn't register in the worldwide rankings I found.

[Trippy]

Karma's a bitch

Pft.. Dell and his investors are going to make a shit ton more money doing this.  They're taking the huge cash reserve Dell was keeping to keep investors happy and cashing themselves huge checks.  Think any of that cash reserve is going to the workers? Fuck no.

Then they get to play whatever short or long game they want to not having to worry about investors complaining about ROI or protests from employees scaring off investors.

Michael Dell's already very wealthy. I was referring to his famous quote regarding Apple back in 1997:

I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.

Apple is now a $400+ billion company. Dell peaked at $100 billion back in 2000.

[Chimpy]

While Dell's products have been underwhelming (and often annoying), I would rather not deal with another vendor. At least with Dell as a large enterprise / government customer you know what to expect.

Of course, I work for one of Dell's largest customers. My department alone bought over a million dollars in Dell hardware in the last year.

[Merusk]

Yes, Dell's already very wealthy.  He's about to be even more wealthy because what I said is exactly what they're doing.  It's been a non-secret for over a month on Wall-Street according to the stories I read this morning, this was just the formal announcement. 

Dell's not closing, (yet) so you don't have to deal with another vendor.  As I said, this is them saying, "fuck you shareholding morons who are trying to convince us pump n dump is the best business model to run by."

[Trippy]

Yes, Dell's already very wealthy.  He's about to be even more wealthy because what I said is exactly what they're doing.  It's been a non-secret for over a month on Wall-Street according to the stories I read this morning, this was just the formal announcement. 

He's not going to be even more wealthy unless he can significantly increase the value of the company. He's worth about $15 billion right now and he'll be the majority owner of the private company which means he's putting up all his stock and cash (from himself and his investment fund) to buy out his half of the company. There's nothing Michael Dell has shown in the last 13 years that tells me he knows how to significantly increase the value of the company (yes I know he hasn't been CEO for all of the last 13 years).

[Hammond]

Just look at the articles today about HP and people wanting them to split up. There is no real benefit to the company to do that just to stock holders. Which increasingly seems to be for short term gain over long term benefit. Hp selling off printers / pc's will gut their other businesses. Part of the reason people still deal with them is because they sell the whole stack. God I hate the stock market sometimes.

[Johny Cee]

Karma's a bitch

Pft.. Dell and his investors are going to make a shit ton more money doing this.  They're taking the huge cash reserve Dell was keeping to keep investors happy and cashing themselves huge checks.  Think any of that cash reserve is going to the workers? Fuck no.

Then they get to play whatever short or long game they want to not having to worry about investors complaining about ROI or protests from employees scaring off investors.

wut?  In a valuation, cash is the easiest thing to value since it's face value.  That is, if you buy a company the cash is going to be valued one to one.  So essentially, for the cash portion of the business, you are spending $1 of personal money to purchase $1 of the company's cash reserve.  To touch it, you have to take it out as a dividend which would be taxed at dividend rates so the actual value to the investor would net to be less than the $1 you spent to acquire the interest.

[Yegolev]

Just look at the articles today about HP and people wanting them to split up. There is no real benefit to the company to do that just to stock holders. Which increasingly seems to be for short term gain over long term benefit. Hp selling off printers / pc's will gut their other businesses. Part of the reason people still deal with them is because they sell the whole stack. God I hate the stock market sometimes.

This doesn't appear to be the direction Whitman is leaning, so she agrees with you.  Splitting off parts probably sounds good to people who are familiar with those parts and don't want the crap parts dragging down the good parts.  However, the opposing tactic is being pushed whereby redundant services are being consolidated or eliminated to strengthen HP as a whole, with the EDS acquisition being an example that I'm familiar with.  Anything can happen in Big Bidness, but consolidation and streamlining are the games at HP today.  Stockholders generally have short views and cannot be trusted to make sound decision on sustainability.

[Hammond]

Just look at the articles today about HP and people wanting them to split up. There is no real benefit to the company to do that just to stock holders. Which increasingly seems to be for short term gain over long term benefit. Hp selling off printers / pc's will gut their other businesses. Part of the reason people still deal with them is because they sell the whole stack. God I hate the stock market sometimes.

This doesn't appear to be the direction Whitman is leaning, so she agrees with you.  Splitting off parts probably sounds good to people who are familiar with those parts and don't want the crap parts dragging down the good parts.  However, the opposing tactic is being pushed whereby redundant services are being consolidated or eliminated to strengthen HP as a whole, with the EDS acquisition being an example that I'm familiar with.  Anything can happen in Big Bidness, but consolidation and streamlining are the games at HP today.  Stockholders generally have short views and cannot be trusted to make sound decision on sustainability.

So far Whitman is looking better than that last few CEO's. Although that is not really hard. I work with a guy that used to develop printer drivers at HP which he left a few years ago. He still has friends there and they are somewhat optimistic about the current situation.

[Yegolev]

My opinion is that the stock price does not reflect the value of the company.

I just learned Brian Eno's full name.

[HaemishM]

So far Whitman is looking better than that last few CEO's. Although that is not really hard.

Yeah, considering one of those was the human cascade failure that is Carly Fiorina and the other introduced a tablet that he gave up on two months after release.

[Hammond]

Hmm just bought Skylanders Giants for my nephew. I almost feel dirty buying into that game series. At 10 bucks a pop this game could get expensive.

[Abagadro]

Tell me about it.  Whoever thought that shit up is an evil genius.

[MisterNoisy]

Fifteen-hour workdays suck.

[WayAbvPar]

Tell me about it.  Whoever thought that shit up is an evil genius.

Yep. My 4 year old spends his entire waking hours either playing, watching videos, or talking about it. It is pretty cute to see him so excited 

[Der Helm]

This starts today

Coherent posting from me in the next few days will be a coincidence. Alaaf!