When all else fails . . .

. . . . do a big merger and hope to keep the accounting confusion going for another year or two.

Borrowing lots of money (half a billion last month)? SEC accounting investigation still ongoing? $12B of shares issued on 28 Dec 2006 that aren't included in shares outstanding? Crooked E in the logo, just like Enron? More cash extracted by insiders than the entire all-time profits (it's been turned into "treasury stock" on the balance sheet). It's probably nothing - silly me. I just thought for a moment there that Dell looked like a company that's been trying for several years to pretend that it's not closing down.

IMO it's much more likely Dell will try to sell the PC business to Acer, and try to retain a profitable server and services division.