Dell announced Wednesday that Kevin Rollins has resigned as chief executive officer, and company founder Michael Dell has retaken the helm of the PC company. “This is not a short-term assignment,” said Bob Pearson, a Dell spokesman. Dell, who founded the PC company in 1984, will retain his duties as chairman of the board of directors.
This to me seems like a conflict of interest. the board of directors is the check & balace of the CxO staff of a company – having a CEO be the board chair seems wrong
Yeah, but effective board oversight is overrated and never happens anyway. No matter how incompetent the CEO might be, the board is usually many times more incompetent.
Take Bill Ford, Jr., for instance. I think we can all agree that he is the second most under-qualified executive in the world (to the guy with the unsettling smirk and the armed Marines outside his office). But can you imagine how incompetent the board was to put him in that position? “So… what exactly are your qualifications?” “Well, my great-grandfather was Henry Ford.” “When can you start?”
Same thing here. How could they say no? His last name is literally Dell! 😉
“I think we can all agree that he is the second most under-qualified executive in the world (to the guy with the unsettling smirk and the armed Marines outside his office).”
Nope, sorry, don’t count me in-I don’t agree with you there, and until you’re in “his shoes” don’t criticize….
Opinions are like buttholes-everyone’s got one, and besides, quite trying to bring (thinly) veiled political debates into an OS story
Dell 2.0? More like Gateway 2.0.
Never heard of the title “Chairman and CEO”, huh? This is common in corporate America.
I doubt this is going to make a dent in Dell’s bottom line, for the better or worse. Dell is making money hand over fist and would be fine even with his highness, the most incompetent George W. Bush behind the desk.
That’s how we should remember the reign of Kevin Rollins.
On a serious note, maybe this will be good for dell. Maybe Micheal Dell can reinvent the company and take it in a better direction. Then again this may very well be another Gateway like story instead of an Apple like story.
I suppose the up side is that I will probably start watching dell a little closer to see how it progresses over the next year or so.
Nice incite, made me think!
Micheal Dell has always been known for his alternative take on market situations. I’d love to see if he can turn Dell around.
The article mentions Rollins unwillingness to adopt AMD processors and I know that was a large reason many of my friends opted for HP in the server, desktop and laptop markets.
Personally, I’ve always either built my own desktops and servers, or bought Prolient servers (be that Compaq or HP) as I really like being able to run Linux on my machines. Ironically, the only time I have owned a laptop (on loan from my job) has been a Dell.
One thing I have always liked about Dell is their willingness to sell Linux with their desktop products. I know the Reg disagrees but I have never had any problems finding the option to have RedHat pre-bundled. In fact, when you look at the specs of a Dell desktop here in Europe, it specifically mentions RedHat.
Dell and AMD is a very funny story to me. When AMD was top dog and getting all the good press Dell just kept up this attitude about how nobody really wanted AMD. Then after Intel comes back fighting Dell finally decides to start selling AMD.
I should note that I am an AMD fan. Have been since the Athlon slot A processors. However, I don’t count Intel out. My policy is usually to buy the most cost effective system I can. So far that’s always been the AMD processors. However, if I were to build a system for gaming I would probably look at Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors. They are pretty nice.
I agree, it’s pretty hilarious! And to think that it was mostly Rollins what went against AMD. I wouldn’t be at all supprised if Michael Dell was the drive behind their change of stance.
I’m a big AMD fan for exactly the same reasons. As I really wanted to go 64bit for xmass, I decided to build a system based on Intel’s Core2 Duo 6600 again for exactly the same reasons you stated.
Funny that!
Well, when I’m not standing on my soap box I’m usually pretty reasonable about technology and who deserves what merits.
The facts as they look to me is that AMD and Intel both make good products. If a person is smart and thinks about what they are buying they will probably make the right choice for themselves.
I agree. I was all for the underdog for many years and in allot of ways still am but being for the underdog does not automatically guarantee your for the better product/team/solution. I found that most of the time when people say such and such is superior, it’s because they have either been influenced by someone or know just enough about it to think their opinion is well informed.
Kinda sad but more often than not true.
Unless Dell owns less than 51% of the company, he can do whatever he wants. He can make himself manager of the mail too. Being the owner means everything. I for one would never give up control of my company by going IPO, but thats me.
This whole AMD/Intel discussion regarding Dell is amusing. Don’t think for a second that the decisions made were for anything other than business reasons. Dell was Intel only for a long time because they were getting special pricing and other perks from Intel for being Intel-only and a big buyer. Dell decided to incorporate AMD into its products when Intel did away with the special deals that large companies like Dell were getting and forced everyone onto an even playing field. From that moment on, there was no reason for Dell not to start using AMD.
As for the CEO switch, during Rollins’ watch we had the laptop battery fiasco, the pricing fiasco and the issues with poor support, all of which hurt Dell. Seems like Michael may have been thinking “enough is enough” and lets get this company back on track.
As for AMD vs. Intel, I am glad both companies are around and hopefully will be for a while. This competition thing is great for us consumers.