Microsoft & Dell to Merge - An April Fools Joke??

[frankfriend]

The last edition [May] of PC Pro carried an article by John Honeyball about a merger between Microsoft & Dell - I guess it was an early April Fools Day joke, or ....???

 

[freenetter]

Haven't heard of anything yet... ^_^

 

[rebellion]

Lol, I feel bad for Microsoft. They'll loose lots of money... Dell sucks

 

[Max1337]

Lol, I feel bad for Microsoft. They'll loose lots of money... Dell sucks

What does it matter to MS?
They got billions of dollars... lol

 

[frankfriend]

And apparently IBM is a leading bidder for Sun.

 

[Smith6612]

I haven't heard this, but I'm sure it'll show up on the tech sites like crazy if this does happen. Seeing as though Dell already owns Alienware, imagine Dell being bought by Microsoft. That would mean one huge company then...

 

[akkudreamz]

Lol, I feel bad for Microsoft. They'll loose lots of money... Dell sucks

you mean it sucks more than Microsoft?? :O

 

[intertec]

I hate dell. sometimes they make the worst deals.

 

[Livewire]

The last edition [May] of PC Pro carried an article by John Honeyball about a merger between Microsoft & Dell - I guess it was an early April Fools Day joke, or ....???

http://www.unsoundnews.com/blog/2005/11/dell-to-merge-with-microsoft-in-deal.html

Carried a similar article in late '05.

I have my serious doubts this is actually a -real- merger, given that it was first posted so far back. I mean if it was such a serious deal, why's it taking 2 years to merge?


The short answer is probably the Anti-Trust/Anti-Monopoly laws; it'd REALLY raise eyebrows if microsoft picked up a major contender in the pc industry when they're already fighting off anti-trust suits for bundling Media Player and IE with Windows, among other apps.

Seriously - they'd start getting hit at both ends. Anti-Trust for bundling Windows with all your pc's, AND Anti-Trust for bundling IE, Media Player, and other apps with the OS you bundled with the pc.


That doesn't sound like a good thing for Microsoft to go for, if you ask me :S

 

[lair360]

Guys...all I can say is...

Welcome to the credit crunch world and the billionaire worlds of Microsoft!

Thank you.

 

[whitebus]

Successful companies are the ones that use economic downturns to buy and build. Dell would be a good fit for Microsoft, as their online system builder makes it very easy for them to showcase and bundle their software. I'd guess Dell is probably the biggest single buyer of MS products.

The IBM/Sun merger could be good and bad news for the Java development community. IBM is still an huge name in corporate computing even with the pc division sold off to Lenovo. It should increase the demand for Java developers and software, but will come at a price. Everything with IBM does.

 

[jensen]

SUN is going strong. Maybe IBM is seeing potential in SUN and the server market.

 

[frankfriend]

I can't believe Microsoft would want to merge with Delkl - apart from the effect on the other hardware manufactrurers who might not care to use operating systems linked so lightly to a` specific rival. I guess it was just a joke.

The IBM Sun one may have legs - apparently Sun has been looking for a partner for a while.

 

[frankfriend]

If MS were to merge with Dell I think there will be an anti microsoft reaction from the other hardware manufacturers. After all they would howl blue murder about Dell having a huge advantrage [or disadvantage] over them with special knowledge of MS OS products. As you said Livewire given the regulators frothing about bundling, they would scream real loud about this combination.

 

[frankfriend]

OK, so Oracle have agreed to buy Sun. A curious merger, which I suspect shows Oracle's desperation to get bigger.

I really wonder why peiople still go for size by merger instead of by more organic growth.

 

[ichwar]

LiveWire, did you even notice the url of that site you linked to?

Unsoundnews.com sounds like a site you cant trust doesn't it?

 

[frankfriend]

As we now know Oracle put in an 'agreed' bid for Sun. I'm not sure this will be a great thing for the Information Technology world. How few successful joint companies are there which combine hardware & software? Even the jolly blue giant has really been more successful with hardware.