Icahn sues Dell in latest attempt to foil buyout

　　Activist investor Carl Icahn sued Dell Incand its board on Thursday, his latest attempt to derail a $24.4 billion buyout bid by the computer maker's founder and CEO Michael Dell.
　　Icahn asked a court to block rule changes Michael Dell has proposed ahead of a shareholder vote set for Friday. Icahn and his affiliates also want the court to stop Dell from changing the record date by which shareholders must have purchased their shares in order to vote.
　　They want to stop Michael Dell from voting any Dell shares acquired since February 5 at any annual shareholder meeting. The February 5 date was when his buyout bid was announced. The lawsuit also seeks the court to bar the company from changing any shareholder voting requirements.
　　The lawsuit, filed in the Court of Chancery of Delaware, seeks to force the company to call an annual shareholder meeting on the same day as the special meeting on the buyout in case Dell Inc sets a new record date.
　　"My personal reaction, bombastic," said Larry Hamermesh, a professor at the Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, Delaware, referring to the lawsuit. "The linchpin of it seems to be that it's inappropriate to move or create a new record date because that takes advantage of a cynical effort to put shares in the hands of arbitrageurs who will want to vote for the deal."
　　Hamermesh pointed out that the judge who is likely to take this case, Leo Strine, often made the point in the takeover battle by industrial gases companies Air Products of rival Airgas that arbitrageurs are shareholders with the same rights.
　　Icahn, who views Michael Dell's offer as too low, has amassed an 8.7 percent stake in Dell and is leading a charge with Southeastern Asset Management against the buyout with an offer of his own. He has been campaigning to get Dell to set a date for the annual shareholder meeting so he can put up his own slate of directors for the company.
　　A spokesman for Dell Inc declined to comment on the suit but said Dell board has always sought to act in accordance with its fiduciary duties.
　　"Tenuous" talks between the buyout group and Dell's special board committee for a higher bid are continuing and they're "making progress," CNBC said on Thursday.
　　The debate over the go-private transaction has dragged on for months, jeopardizing the future of the computer maker facing a decline in its core business of personal computers amid the growing popularity of tablets. Michael Dell has said a turnaround of Dell should be done away from the scrutiny of public investors.
　　THIRD ATTEMPT AT VOTE
　　A vote on the buyout, which has been postponed twice, is now scheduled for Friday and sources familiar with the matter have said another adjournment is unlikely.
　　The special committee has said it would put the original buyout offer of $13.65 per share up for a shareholder vote.
　　Dell's special board committee rejected new voting terms in a revised bid by Michael Dell and Silver Lake, which raised their offer price last week by 10 cents to $13.75 per share on the condition the voting rules were changed.
　　Currently, shareholders who abstain are counted as voting against the deal, but the buyout group wanted those investors to be excluded from the tally.
　　Michael Dell's unusual demand sparked outrage among major investors, but the buyout group had said about 27 percent of the unaffiliated shares had not yet been voted and the presumption that these shares should be treated as if they had voted against the transaction was unfair.
　　The votes that have come in so far are split evenly between yes and no, sources have said, but there appears to be some signs that Michael Dell could get more votes.
　　Some of Dell's largest investors, who have abstained from voting on the buyout, told the company's board this week that they would back the deal at the buyout group's latest offer price, three sources close to the matter have told Reuters.
　　Dell's shares closed up 2.3 percent at $12.96 on the Nasdaq.

That kind of cross-platform expertise is definitely

　　Greater than nine months into the terrific revamping known as Windows eight, a clear vision of its core is lastly beginning to emerge. The baked-in apps have been streamlined and Windows eight.1 looms, able to polish the a lot of rough edges located within the original release of your operating technique. But Microsoft alone can not enhance what exactly is definitely the beating heart of Windows eight: The Windows Shop.
　　Windows eight revolves around the Windows Store. Each and every Live Tile that glimmers on the modern-style Begin screen could be the iconic representation of a Windows eight app-and you may only snag Windows 8 apps in Microsoft’s own Windows Retailer. As the Windows Shop goes, so goes the Windows eight knowledge.
　　How, specifically, is the Windows Shop performing? The apparent indicators are mixed. Windows RT devices can run only modern-style apps, not desktop apps, and they’re tanking difficult. But app submissions picked up steam about the time of Microsoft’s Build conference, culminating in the shattering on the 100,000-app barrier in early July, and they’re still going (relatively) sturdy.
　　That’s an awesome milestone for Microsoft, but it is nevertheless paltry in comparison with the roughly 1 million apps in Google Play and 900,000 apps in Apple’s App Retailer. So it’s a great time to take the pulse with the Windows Retailer once again: Is one hundred,000 apps sufficient to keep a body pleased? As I did final February, I spent days scouring the Windows Store and taking notes in 5 big categories: games, music apps, video apps, social apps, in addition to a catch-all “other” category-to see how nicely Microsoft covered each. Here’s how they all measured up.
　　In my original Windows Retailer evaluation, I noted that the game choice was an early highlight-and it has only gotten stronger considering the fact that February. The amount of obtainable apps has tripled in that time. While the roughly 13,500 out there games do not hold a candle for the vast Android and iOS libraries, there's more than sufficient to keep you distracted for months to come. A great deal of them are ports from other platforms, but, hey, they play just as nicely on Windows.
　　In actual fact, they play so nicely that we’ve had two separate roundups of killer Windows 8 games, with pretty small overlap. In case you open the Games tab in the Windows Store and sort by "noteworthy," you will find dozens and dozens of high-quality titles. (I’ve been playing Royal Revolt nonstop recently.) Microsoft Studios in particular has released a bevy of bodacious games like Pinball FX2, Hydro Thunder Hurricane, along with the Gunstringer.
　　Speaking of which, two games from Microsoft Studios-Skulls in the Shogun and Halo: Spartan Assault-aren’t just a blast-they’re also far-reaching, letting you play with gamers on Windows Telephone and Xbox Reside as well as with fellow Windows Store shoppers. That kind of cross-platform expertise is definitely an exciting tease of your potential of Windows eight gaming in a One Microsoft sort of planet. Here’s hoping it continues.
　　That is to not say that all is well in Winny’s globe, nonetheless. As pointed out, although the Windows Retailer game selection is impressive, it can not evaluate to the selections for iOS or Android-you will not obtain any mobile Walking Dead games or Grand Theft Auto ports right here.