Carl Icahn Belief That a New CEO Will Help Dell Unlikely to Be True

A slew of media reports say that Michael Dell is increasingly likely to lose his own bid to take control of the company he founded. The Wall Street Journal reported that powerful investors including Vanguard, State Street and BlackRock have lined up against Dell, and that his chances of success have nearly disappeared.

Icahn clearly believes that someone other the Dell can run the company better than Dell can. Although Michael Dell handed the CEO job over to others for a time, there was never any question about who the computer company’s top executive was. The company’s problems can be blamed on him, and fairly so. He did not leverage his brand to expand beyond the personal computing (PC) business. He did not press into tablets and smartphones. Rather, he attempted to move into IT services and other ancillary businesses, but never with any zeal. He paid the price because he decided Dell would be better off not being Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) or Samsung, or even International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM).

Unfortunately for Icahn, he cannot turn back the clock. The tablet and smartphone industries are already so full of competition that one more company will not dislodge the leaders. In the enterprise computing and software businesses, it is unimaginable that any company could topple SAP A.G. (NYSE: SAP), IBM, Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) or even Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT). Years of effort, accompanied by success, have allowed those companies to build what business professors like to call wide “moats.” Dell’s own board made the case for the sale of the company last March. In essence the board said Dell was ill-fated as it struggled to maintain a place in a PC business that has so little future.

It does not take much more than a look at Dell’s financial statements to see how impossible it is for the company to recover, no matter who leads it. In its most recently reported quarter, sales of its products dropped from $11.4 billion a year earlier to $10.9 billion. That will not be the worst of it, if research reports about PC sales around the world are correct. Those sales are in a flat spin. Almost no one has made a case the situation will improve. And Dell’s share of the dwindling market is still eroding. Dell’s net income in the past quarter was $130 million, down from $635 million the year before. The profits could turn into a loss quickly if sales continue to deteriorate, and they will.

Dell is now a company rooted in the tech industry’s past. New management cannot change that, no matter how talented they are.