Dell Inc, the world’s No. 2 maker of personal computers, said speculation over IBM Corp’s possible purchase of Sun Microsystems Inc creates opportunities for customer gains.
“Just the rumor of IBM potentially purchasing Sun creates an enormous opportunity, because all of the Sun accounts are very concerned about what will happen” to its proprietary products for server computers, Dell chief executive officer Michael Dell said at a briefing in Tokyo yesterday.
The Round Rock, Texas-based PC maker is “actively working with large numbers of Sun customers to move those from Sun’s Solaris, SPARC platforms to x86 Linux platform,” where Dell has strong market share, he said.
The executive declined to elaborate when asked whether there was an increase in companies switching specifically to Dell because of the speculation about Sun.
IBM, the world’s biggest computer services provider, is in negotiations to buy Santa Clara, California-based Sun, two people familiar with the matter said this month.
IBM would pay about US$10 a share, more than twice Sun’s March 17 closing price, people familiar with the talks said, giving the Armonk, New York-based services company almost half the global market for servers, computers that run networks and Web sites.
Dell declined to say whether the company was interested in buying Sun. Servers and networking equipment accounted for 10 percent of Dell’s US$13.4 billion in sales in the fiscal fourth quarter.
In related news, Taiwan’s Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團), parent of the world’s largest contract maker of handsets, denied a report in the Chinese-language Commercial Times that it received orders from Dell to produce smartphones.
Dell has placed the orders at Hon Hai and may introduce the smartphones as early as the first half, the paper reported yesterday, without saying where it got the information.
“This report is false,” Hon Hai spokesman Edmund Ding (丁祈安) said by telephone from Suzhou, China.
Michael Dell declined at a briefing in Tokyo to comment on the report.
Dell said in September that it may eventually sell smaller devices with features similar to smartphones.
Hon Hai Group unit Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) is the world’s largest contract maker of electronics including mobile phones.
Foxconn International Holdings Ltd (富士康控股), also a group unit, assembles handsets for other companies.
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
RSS