Michael Dell back as CEO, Rollins resigns
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The PC company's namesake founder will once again control the day-to-day operations of the company he founded in 1984.
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(InfoWorld) - Stock in Dell was rising Monday on news thatÂ founder Michael Dell plans to remain as CEO for several years, trim the number of managers reporting directly to him, and eliminate bonuses. "We have a tough couple of quarters ahead. We didn't get here overnight, and we won't fix things overnight either," Dell wrote in a memo to employees on Friday. "Last year ... we had great efforts but not great results. This is disappointing, and it is unacceptable." Dell pointed to several problems with the company, including an overgrown bureaucracy and operating expenses that had grown too fast. "We have great people ... but we also have a new enemy: bureaucracy, which costs us money and slows us down. We created it, we subjected our people to it, and we have to fix it!" Dell said. "I am asking each of you to look across your organizations and eliminate redundancies." On Monday, a corporate spokeswoman confirmed the authenticity of the memo, which had been leaked to media over the weekend. The company has been buffeted in recent days by the resignation of CEO Kevin Rollins last Wednesday,Â Michael Dell announcing he would take over that job, and the accusation inÂ a lawsuit by investorsÂ on Friday that 15 top executives had garnered millions of dollars by selling their stock after propping up the company's faltering revenue with secret payments from Intel. Even before those blows landed, Dell was wobbling on a threat by the Nasdaq stock exchange to drop its stock unless the company files its overdue quarterly earnings reports.Â Dell has delayed filing those numbers for the past two terms as it struggles to satisfy an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of its accounting practices. It is not yet clear if that investigation is related to the investors' charges that Dell hid payments by Intel in exchange for staying exclusively loyal to one brand of microprocessor in its PCs. When Michael Dell announced on Wednesday he would return to his position as CEO, the company was already in the midst of a reorganization plan that calls for $100 million in spending to improve the customer service practices that allow it to bypass retail stores with its famed "direct sales" business model. The company was also following Rollins' plan toÂ remake itself as "Dell 2.0,"Â trying to move beyond an enormousÂ notebook PC battery recall in August by focusing on industrial design, overseas factories, and a move to diversify its computers by using chips fromÂ AMD as well as those from Intel. In his Friday memo, Dell added new details to that strategy. He promised to turn around the company by focusing on the SMB sector, enterprise servers and storage, shorter design cycles for new products, and increased sales in emerging markets. He also made a few corporate changes, recalling Paul Bell from his job running the company's markets in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) to lead Dell's new Americas group, which includes the fast-growing SMB sector. Dell also created a "global operations" division to focus on manufacturing and procurement. "I remember what it's like to start a company. We're moving fast. There is no luxury of time. The competitors are fierce. The difference is this time we have many new assets and some hidden ones that can be brought out," he wrote. Dell did not describe the hidden assets he would use to rescue his company's prospects, but he hinted that Dell had enough resources to outspend its competition. AlthoughÂ Dell handed the title of world's largest PC vendor to HP this year, it is still a corporate colossus. "When I started back in 1984, it was just me. But now we are blessed to have an awesome team, many great assets, and $11 billion or so," Dell said. Â
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The senior vice president of Dell Inc.'s global online business and marketing division has decided to leave the computer maker rather than oversee the company's new consumer group, according to an internal e-mail.
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Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) announced today that Tom Luce has rejoined Dell's Board of Directors as a member of the Audit Committee. Mr. Luce previously served on the Dell Board from 1991 to 2005 and also served as a member of the Audit Committee for much of that time.
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(InfoWorld) - In the wake of Dell Inc.'s disclosure Monday that it might have to restate recent earnings statements because of discoveries made by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), company founder and chairman Michael Dell has defended his embattled chief executive, Kevin Rollins. "Kevin has done an outstanding job as chief executive," Dell told a crowd at the company's annual Technology Day meeting in New York Tuesday. "We run the company together, so if you want to blame somebody, you can blame me too." Dell will delay filing its quarterly Form 10-Q to the SEC until it answers questions raised by an SEC investigation into its accounting and financial reporting practices, the company said Monday. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York has opened a separate investigation, involving documents filed from 2002 to the present. Both offices have raised the possibility of misstatements in prior period financial reports. Dell has already announced a preliminary earnings report for the second quarter, highlighted by a 51 percent drop in profit from the same period last year. Form 10-Q is the formal quarterly earnings report required of every publicly traded company. Asked whether he would heed calls from analysts and investors to resign, Rollins said he disagreed with the sentiment, then turned the podium over to his boss. "Any press speculation on that is completely useless. Feel free to speculate, but it's not going to happen," Dell said. "The CEO is chosen by the board of directors and the shareholders, and I'm the largest shareholder, so you can do the math." Dell and Rollins declined to give further details on the investigations, saying only that they were cooperating fully.
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After eight years at the company, Kevin Rollins was appointed president and CEO of the $41.4 billion computer juggernaut Dell Computer last July. Many still think of Dell as a desktop supplier, but the company has become a powerhouse in server and notebooks as well and is making strong moves in the printer and storage markets.
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Rod Thorn, who built the New Jersey Nets into National Basketball Association contenders, will return as president and CEO.
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TechWeb - The No. 1 PC maker is in the midst of a major shake up that started when its Chief Executive Kevin Rollins quit in January.
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By MATT SLAGLE  DALLAS - In a memo to Dell Inc. employees days after returning as chief executive officer, Michael Dell said the beleaguered computer maker is quashing bonuses for 2006 and reducing managers to help cut costs and steer the company back toward dominance.
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By RACHEL BECK Associated Press  NEW YORK -- Michael Dell offered up some harsh advice a decade ago on how to fix struggling Apple Computer, words that now provide an ironic sting for the newly minted CEO of his own slumping company.
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Michael Dell said today that he deserved a share of the blame for recent problems at Dell Computer and reaffirmed his support for his chief executive, Kevin Rollins.
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By Crayton Harrison, The Dallas Morning News  Dec. 13--Dell Inc. has hired former Electronic Data Systems Corp. executive Steve Schuckenbrock to lead its global services business, the computer maker said Tuesday.   Plano-based EDS announced Mr. Schuckenbrock's departure in May.
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Michael Dell's return as chief executive officer of Dell Inc. may have appeased analyst demands for now, but they say he faces an enormous, long-term challenge in fixing nagging problems that have plagued the computer maker.
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Former Dell CEO Kevin Rollins, who was ousted by the computer manufacturer's board at the end of January and replaced by company founder Michael Dell, won't leave empty handed: Rollins will receive a severance package that includes $5 million in cash over the next two years.
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Stalled server growth, exploding batteries, sinking customer service After 30 months at the helm, Kevin Rollins is leaving Dell, following years of decline that might rival the great fall of the Roman empire. The disclosure came as the company said its fourth-quarter results fell below analysts' consensus estimates.â¦
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Golden umbrella Dell's executive compensation committee has proved the cruelest of masters, handing ex-CEO Kevin Rollins a piddling $5m on his way out of Round Rock. The company today revealed the embarrassing payout in a SEC filing, detailing its parting of ways from Rollins.â¦
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InfoWorld - After eight years at the company, Kevin Rollins was appointed president and CEO of the &#36;41.4 billion computer juggernaut Dell Computer last July. Many still think of Dell as a desktop supplier, but the company has become a powerhouse in server and notebooks as well and is making strong moves in the printer and storage markets.