What I find interesting about this is the substantial loan from Microsoft that has enabled the share buy-back.

I wonder if the discontinuation of any planned Chromebook was a condition of the loan?

I read the thread, but I still can't work out why you posted it.

It is interesting that one of the stated reasons is that a private company can take the time to do things right whereas a publicly traded company has to deliver every quarter.

I can vouch for the last part of that statement. I worked for several years for a publicly traded electronic controls manufacturer in Dallas Texas and the pressure to perform was intense. Each Monday morning we reviewed the previous week's performance against our plan. Did Sales bring in enough orders? Did Manufacturing produce enough? Was it the right stuff? Did Purchasing buy enough of the right parts? Did Quality Control check that the goods going out were within specification? Was Quality of parts coming in correct? Did Shipping get the goods to the right place on time? Did Engineering meet their target for new products? Had Finance met their targets for Receivable and Payables?

This weekly meeting was aimed at making sure we met the month's target and most importantly that we met the target for the Quarter when it would be reviewed by the board and compared against the company's other divisions before being released to the press and of course seen by any investors.

As a publicly traded company in the US Dell would be working under those same pressures, taken private some of that pressure would still be there but the need to show results to shareholders each quarter would not.

Sir Alan Sugar tried the same thing in 1992 with a buy back of Amstrad but he failed when the shareholders voted against the move.

Like all these flotations or buy-outs, there is usually quite a lot of activity behind the scenes that the public may or never will hear about. Equity companies can be very secretive as to the way they obtain or service a company, and I would imagine that Dell and Microsoft are well advanced as to 'what next'.

Considering that Dell had a very strong foothold, commercially and public sector, I can only wonder if previous spikes of poor customer service as had anything to do with this?.

What would also concern me, is the role of Microsoft, considering their world-wide power at present?.