Dell bidding to close at midnight, Friday!

Rivals to the proposed $24 billion buyout of the computer maker by its founder, Michael S Dell, and the private equity firm Silver Lake have until midnight Friday to submit their alternative bids, under a process being run by a special committee of the Dell board.

The window is rapidly closing for those interested in taking a shot at buying the PC maker. The current buyout bid for Dell specifies a "go shop" period that ends Friday at midnight, by which any interested bidder needs at least to inform the company's board of directors that it wants to pursue a formal bid process.

Their are rumours around that Oracle co-president Mark Hurd may be key to a blackstone bid.

While Oracle co-president Mark Hurd is working to get his own sales force up to speed, he may end up as a key factor in helping those interested in making a counter-bid for Dell Inc. get their deal closed.
The Wall Street Journal reported that private equity giant Blackstone is trying to line up partners to make a potential counter-bid for Dell, which is under a pending privatization deal backed by founder Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake.

Bloomberg reported that Blackstone also approached Hurd about running the company, if it is able to put together a winning bid.
Which means such players need to have their ducks lined up in a row - or, in this case, the necessary capital to trump the $24.4 billion being offered by Michael Dell and Silver Lake, which equates to about $13.65 per share.
The WSJ report said Southeastern was talking with Blackstone about the possibility of rolling its shares into a counter-bid.

In any case, it seems that any interested party will need a big name or two among high-tech executives to attract the necessary support. Mark Hurd ran arch-Dell-rival Hewlett-Packard Co. for five years before resigning under some controversy. Another name that has surfaced is former Michael Capellas, who ran Compaq Computer before H-P bought the firm.