Microsoft May Invest $1B-$3B In Dell Buyout

alexander_686 writes "We heard that Dell is in buyout talks with private equity firms. Now, the word is that Microsoft may invest one to three billion dollars in that buyout. For that amount of money, Microsoft isn't going for majority ownership, but it would be a significant stake. Dell is worth around $22-25 billion. Speculation is that investors would put up $5-7 billion in equity, borrowing the rest. As a point of reference, Michael Dell's stock is worth $3.6 billion."

proof

[aletterman]

that a fool and his money are soon parted.

eating his words

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Michael Dell shutting down the company and giving the money back to the shareholders??? :)

FYI: that wooshing sound you hear...

[Monkey-Man2000]

...is Linux flying off new Dell computers.

A marriage made in hell

[Anonymous Coward]

I say go for it. Those two companies deserve each other.

ring ring

[vlm]

ring ring
Dell support this is "John" how may I help you?
Ah hi John, this is Steve at microsoft I'd like to open a support ticket because I'm having trouble transferring $3B as part of a private equity buyout.
OK Steve while I do the needful opening a support ticket I have some tasks for you, I was wondering if you could reboot the computer.
Well John the problem is on your website, I'm trying to paypal you $3M and I'm getting an error message about ..
Please do the needful Steve and simply click the start button, then shutdown...
No John this is windows 8 there is no start button anymore
Oh so sorry Steve let me pull up the correct script... Ah I see you are needing to restore windows from your install partition, which will reinstall all the crapware and drivers and a unpatched version of windows from 2010 complete with 57 varieties of security hole, but we don't charge extra for that.
OK John (Steve humors John, and fumbles around for his iPad to use instead, pretending just so they can get past the script)
I'm not really sure where to go with this, other than it should probably end with "steve" from microsoft throwing a chair, or "developers develpers developers" or somesuch nonsense.

Regulators should never allow this

[bitt3n]

between Dell's unbeatable reputation for sleek, innovative, high-margin technological wizardry, and Microsoft's remarkable ability to bring such inimitable mix of elegant simplicity and raw sex-appeal to new markets as puts their rabid fan base into a swoon, every other player in the industry would doubtless close down and give the money back to their shareholders.

Re:ring ring

[93 Escort Wagon]

Wait a minute... how did Steve get past the automated help system to talk to a real person?