IN HOPES OF making itself more competitive, Dell will apparently be flogging off many, if not all, of its factories around the globe.

The Wall Street Journal reckons Dell has sneakily been wooing contract computer manufacturers, offering to sell them the plants within the next year and a half.

The news comes just a week after the computer giant released a particularly substandard quarterly report, so disappointing it sent shares in the firm plummeting by 18 per cent. Dell is feeling the pressure to make a change and boost its profits.

Rather than laying out for laptops through Dell’s legendarily direct channels, punters are buying them from big electronics chains instead.

If Dell were to find contract manufacturers to buy its plants – which it owns in Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Ireland, India, China, Brazil, Malaysia and Poland – those manufacturers would probably still continue making Dell machines, but more cheaply.

Jobs would be hacked slashed and outsourced. Those than remain will pay half the rate. Working conditions would go down the toilet and Dell would shrug its corporate shoulders and spin: "It's got nothing to do with me, guv."

A Dell spokesman purportedly pointed the Journal to a recent company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission which noted the firm was " continuing to expand our use of original design manufacturing partnerships and manufacturing outsourcing relationships."

Some potential contract manufacturers are likely to be put off by the fact some factories are situated in areas like the US and Ireland where labour costs are higher. µ

L’Inq
Wall Street Journal