Well, you never know, this might be the last time we report on a quarterly results announcement from Dell. It looks like Michael Dell/SilverLake Go Private deal is moving towards ‘victory’ (whether they both want it or not)
Q2 revenues were flat yoy at $14.5b – although that beat analyst expectations. But profits slumped 72% from $732m to $204m. Sales of end-user computers slid 5% to $9.1b. But it was 3rd party software sales (probably Microsoft and its W8) and mobility that suffered most. PCs declined just 1% and Dell pointed out in the announcement that they were‘the only vendor amongst the Top Five worldwide to increase PC unit shipments both yoy and qoq in the past two calendar quarters according to IDC’.
Elsewhere Enterprise Solutions actually increased by 8% to $3.3b with Dell servers up 10% and Dell networking up 19%
Dell Services also grew 2% to $2.1b with infrastructure, cloud and security services revenues up 5%.
So, if this is the (or one of the) last Dell announcements it is, like the curate’s egg, ‘good in parts’. PC sales held up well – and certainly better than the competition. Dell is starting to get some traction outside of PCs. This is certainly where the attention will be focused when Dell becomes a private company again.
I sit here tonight typing this post on a W7 Dell PC surrounded by a selection of other Dell PCs and peripherals – some dating back over 12 years! Isn’t XP great! Maybe I’m their problem. Product refresh only happens in the Holway office when the kit breaks. And, to be fair to Dell, it doesn’t