Forget Dell Inc. (DELL), Get This Instead

Dell dude

It’s a shame Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) has been focusing so much energy on being bought, rather than selling their Latitude 10 tablet PC. Its a good machine. This situation is yet another example of a PC maker not pushing its version of the future. Dell has been moving into the server and services market for over a decade. On the server side it’s becoming a market leader, and on the services side Dell has focused on Configuration Management (CM) and Master Data Management (MDM) pay-as-you-go solutions. This growth is good, but Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) needs the consumer market to add investor value. For Dell to thrive, the elephant in the room needs to be discussed. Michael Dell needs to groom a successor for his company — he is no longer essential for Dell to succeed. Dell not having a “Tim Cook” is a major liability. It has the potential to be like post-Chávez Venezuela — a clumsy power vacuum that can’t be good for investors.

PC-plus era

All Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) needs to do is look to BlackBerry to see its future. A public company’s CEO’s responsibility is to shareholders. Michael Dell needs to start innovating, or find someone who will. Surely, in a company with 14,000 employees, Dell has a deep bench. Does the company have someone with ideas? Dell has a chance to get on track, but, tick by tock, Dell is slipping away. With The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX) backing out of the deal, investors will wonder whether Michael Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) will be able to keep Dell relevant. As Dell’s overall industry influence grows smaller, companies like Lenovo continue to think big. Lenovo’s PC business is growing — it’s passed Dell to become the second largest PC company by volume. Lenovo put itself into this position by acquiring competing PC makers, like International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM)‘s ThinkPad division, and adding great software as a service (SaaS) firms, like Stoneware, to bolster its PC line. Now, Lenovo, unlike Dell, is successfully staking a claim in a PC-plus era, instead of simply “looking for answers” in the post-PC market — you should do the same.

The article Forget Dell, Buy Lenovo originally appeared on Fool.com.

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