The Dell tolls
Computing giant Dell is going through yet another period of strategic reappraisal right now, having apparently decided the enterprise storage market is where the smart money is these days.
Whether or not this is the right direction for Dell remains to be seen, but it appears that its shareholders are growing increasingly impatient with the CEO and eponymous founder - Michael Dell.
As is standard practice, nominees for the board of directors were put to the vote at the recent annual shareholders meeting and the results published in a filing. As you can see from the table below, around a quarter of shareholders opposed the appointment of Dell to the board. Intriguingly there was far less opposition to Shantanu Narayen, who is CEO of Adobe.
This development was first reported by the NYT, which noted that Dell - both the company and the individual - had to pay hefty fines to the SEC to settle charges of accounting fraud. Dell also had to restate its financial statements for 2003-2006 in 2007. That, combined with the fact that Dell's share price has been in steady decline since 2005, will have tested shareholder's patience.
There is a precedent for CEOs standing down after shaky shareholder support, and this comes at a time when the successful CEO of Dell's biggest rival has suddenly become available.
