Thomas Seifert recently became interim chief executive, replacing Dirk Meyer, who resigned Jan . 10over a dispute with the board on A.M.D.'s efforts to regain market share in servers and a foothold in mobile computing.
But the need for the deal had been so urgent that Nokia and Microsoft, grasping for a foothold in a mobile computing industry that was quickly slipping away from them, had gone public without a definitive legal agreement, just a handshake and a promise to work together, somehow.
Both of these companies have spent billions of dollars to acquire Salesforce.com's largest competitors like Taleo, RightNow and SuccessFactors to gain a foothold in the cloud computing market.
Nevertheless, there is little doubt that the industry's centre of gravity is shifting ever more rapidly towards mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers, where Apple rules the roost with its iPhones and iPads.Hence Microsoft's sudden keenness to gain a foothold in the new arena of computing.
The acquisition marks the latest attempt by a big technology firm to gain a foothold in the quickly developing "cloud computing" business.
But for the longest time, the company couldn't get a foothold in the quickly growing cloud computing business while competitors like Amazon's AWS and Microsoft Azure were growing rapidly.
Wyse, in particular, gives Dell a bigger foothold in the booming market for cloud computing, which helps firms save money by delivering cheap software and services over the internet.Dell also stands to benefit from the experience of Silver Lake executives, who have revived a number of tech firms, including Skype, an internet-telephony service.
With the Chinese program, Microsoft has the opportunity to establish a foothold in the large and growing cloud computing market in China – a market which China itself has put heavy emphasis on through its own initiatives and investments.
The deal could also help IBM expand its foothold among Web-based businesses and in the nascent cloud computing market.
