Dell Going Private?

If it happens as reported, Dell's disappearance from the realm of public reporting will remove one of this author's favorite examples of how nobody besides Microsoft makes long-term money on the products. Not that there aren't armies of folks selling services to people who can't run Microsoft-powered machines on their own, but the hardware isn't a place many manage to make money outside Microsoft.

Of course, if Microsoft pitches in billions to finance the going-private deal, Dell won't be able to make money outside Microsoft: it'll be Microsoft. Microsoft will get the advantage of Dell's existing high-scale production and its supply-chain contacts, and other hardware vendors will be scrambling for an answer to even more direct competition against Redmond.