Michael Dell bets his wealth on a private turnaround

Our take: Michael Dell plans to make Dell private with the help of Microsoft funding. Ben Berkowitz from Reuters writes about Dell's efforts to improve its chances against competing companies.

"Michael Dell once gave up day-to-day control of the computer company that bears his name — an experiment that went poorly and ended relatively quickly. But now he is putting up a big chunk of his own wealth to reverse the company's fortunes.

"Dell Inc will go private in a $24.4 billion deal led by Michael Dell and including capital from private equity firm Silver Lake and a loan from Microsoft Corp, the parties said on Tuesday.

"That the company would go private is not necessarily a new idea; Michael Dell told an investor conference in June 2010 he had considered it before.

"By pulling the trigger now, the billionaire's company can focus on reversing its fortunes by focusing on higher margin corporate IT and services — borrowing a page from IBM."

Read more about Michael Dell's purchase on Reuters.