Private Dell – foot soldier or Major General?
Although rumours first started on 11th January that Dell was seeking to go private, this column broke the news “officially” five days later, and it has taken until 5th February to be announced. Paying an unacceptable 25% premium on his own shares as at 11th January 2013, Michael Dell has succeeded in his ambition. Dell’s [...]
Read the rest of this entryTaking Dell private – the beginning or the end?
Michael Dell made a brave but ill-advised decision to buy a second rate service provider called Perot Systems in 2009. At that time we speculated that if Dell understood the true value of the outsourcing services industry and its double figure margins then there would be an opportunity for Dell to become a giant and [...]
Read the rest of this entryHP Board Shows Breath Taking Incompetency … Again
This column has highlighted many staggering incompetencies of the HP board in the past – its acquisition of EDS (write-off of $8Bn in August 2012); the acquisition of Palm (write-off of $3.3Bn in November 2011) and now $8.8Bn on the UK acquisition Autonomy. This is $20.6Bn is the twelve months to date! This is more [...]
Read the rest of this entryOutsourcing is broken and it is costing YOU, personally, money
The outsourcing industry is in the crapper. There are precious few outsourcing virgins out there, there are virtually no mega deals left in the market. The service providers have economic models still suited to the “early and good old days”, they still pay huge salaries and commissions to staff who cannot now sell economic large [...]
Read the rest of this entryOutsourcing CEO resignation paves way for a sale of the company
Long suffering shareholders of Phoenix, providers of data hosting, disaster recovery and datacentre services, drew in a deep breath on Wednesday when news that CEO David Courtley had tendered his resignation filtered through. Forced or voluntary it lays open the very real possibility of a trade or private equity sale in the next few months. [...]
Read the rest of this entryHP’s future – Part one Meg Whitman’s master-stroke
Meg Whitman, CEO of beleaguered HP, isn’t stupid but then she isn’t clever either. She has however learnt the art of political survival from her self-funded abortive attempt to become governor of California, which saw a $145m of election bill and a lesson in personal wealth destruction. $4bn was the overnight market cap loss as [...]
Read the rest of this entryOutsourcing War – CSC in the frame for Rendition
Computer Weekly is reporting that Human Rights charity, Reprieve, has gathered documents that it says demonstrate CSC had been contracted to carry out multiple illegal CIA renditions. CSC has been linked in court documents to the rendition of the German citizen Khaled El-Masri, whose case against CIA collaborators in the Macedonian intelligence services is pending [...]
Read the rest of this entryGM axes $2.5Bn HP outsourcing contract – inspired or suicide?
A week ago General Motors’ CIO Randy Mott signalled the end of 28 years of pioneering outsourcing deals by announcing that he was returning 90% of outsourced services back in-house. HP’s approximately $700m per annum (including hardware provisioning) outsourcing contract is now in full run down mode. Returning IT in-house is an alarming and growing [...]
Read the rest of this entryOutsourcing CEO gets 17 years gaol
It is not often that you get an exclusive story and that in addition has all the elements of a melodrama – sustained and significant fraud, greed and envy, betrayal, menace, multiple fast cars, hired muscle, and … you guessed it – Outsourcing! What I hear you cry! – an outsourcer has been jailed for [...]
Read the rest of this entryLogica and CGI Wedding Bells at last? Don’t bet on it!
The news that a mostly unknown Canadian service provider (CGI) has put a cash-only bid to purchase the archetypal old fashioned British jewel of Logica should come as no surprise to the markets. Valued, until the bid arrived, at half of what it was worth a year or so ago, still means that even after [...]
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