Dell Owner Admits Rapid Rise of Tablets Surprised Him

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Michael Dell didn't expect to see businesses adopts tablets instead of PCs so quickly.

As his company goes private via a $24.4 billion deal, Dell founder Michael Dell has admitted that the rapid rise of tablets has surprised him.

The emergence of the tablet market is widely believed to have been the cause of the PC industry's market decline. "I didn't completely see that coming," Dell said, adding that he did not expect to see businesses ditch PCs in favor of adopting tablets in such a short period of time.

During October 2012, tablet display shipments surpassed that of notebooks. In 2013, global tablet shipments are expected to surpass notebooks by approximately 33 million units at over 240 million units.

Dell, meanwhile, was once the dominant force in the PC market. However, its fortunes have continuously declined with emerging technologies. In a bid to revive the company's performance in the market, it recently completed a $24.4 billion deal to take it private.

It was financed by current CEO and founder Michael Dell, private equity firm Silver Lake, and debt financing from a consortium of banks, while Microsoft contributed a $2 billion loan.

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Zak Islam
19 Comments Comment from the forums
  • disolitude
    In before some guy mentions his 1997 comment about Apple needing to shut down and giving money back to shareholders...
    Reply
  • virtualban
    Portability, with the added benefit to consume media laying back at the couch, at the living room, at the toilette, and, when waterproof, in the shower too.
    Reply
  • ingtar33
    the only reason he's buying his company back is to use it as his own personal piggy bank. he's been planning on doing this ever since he got in trouble with the SEC for doing just that a few years ago.
    Reply
  • boiler1990
    ingtar33the only reason he's buying his company back is to use it as his own personal piggy bank. he's been planning on doing this ever since he got in trouble with the SEC for doing just that a few years ago.
    The beauty of a privately-owned company is that they can do whatever they please rather than having to bend to the will of share-holders and a short-term-profit-hungry board of directors that make terrible business decisions. You know, like HP.
    Reply
  • twelve25
    Agreed. Private companies seem to be the only ones making smart decisions these days. Many of the big public companies have to concentrate only on next quarter's earnings, even if it means running the company into the ground 5 years down the road. Shareholders are not patient anymore.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    2012 was a great year for smartphone and tablet adoption but I think 2013 models are going to mark a major leap in productivity on those devices - they finally got enough RAM and processing power to start going significantly beyond simple media consumption.

    So people who were surprised by tablet sales in 2012 have not seen anything yet... 2012 was just the tip of the iceberg showing up on radar.
    Reply
  • dgingeri
    boiler1990The beauty of a privately-owned company is that they can do whatever they please rather than having to bend to the will of share-holders and a short-term-profit-hungry board of directors that make terrible business decisions. You know, like HP.
    Amen to that. I'm in a cash strapped corporation right now. Instead of giving us the budget to buy the equipment we need to make products that can compete, we have to scrounge for OM1 fibre cables, use 10 year old servers and storage arrays, and produce products that are 2 years behind our competitors. All so they can give the shareholders more dividends while we wait around for some bigger company to buy us out for our old patents. Utterly stupid.
    Reply
  • fnh
    dgingeri... All so they can give the shareholders more dividends ...
    Hello Dutch East India Company!
    Reply
  • Tekkaman
    "businesses adopts"

    My favorite.

    @dgingeri - Really sorry to hear. It's sad that you are in such a situation. Best of luck to you. I've seen that and it is becoming more commonplace than previous. It should never be that way.
    Reply
  • chibiwings
    I'm one of those guys that will grow old using a mouse and keyboard..
    Reply