[Quest:] Dell shares are soaring on the talk the computer firm's looking to go private. Maggie is in New York. I was just saying to you, Maggie, in the break, this came out of it just shows you; you start your average Monday and the next thing you know, Dell shares are up 12 percent and trading's halted or was for five minutes.
[Maggie Lake, Cnn Correspondent:] That's right. It was briefly halted, Richard. And you're right. The Dell's specific news is a surprise. But I have to tell you, this is part of a trend that we talked about at the end of last year and that is the fact that PCs are in decline as more and more people move on to tablets and phones. Last year was the first year that PCs declined for the year, purchases declined for the year in over a decade. And Richard, before we get into it, I just want to tell you, I talked to Michael Dell just a couple of months ago when Microsoft launched Windows 8 and I asked him specifically about those who were saying that the PC's dead. Have a listen to what he said.
[Michael Dell, Ceo, Dell Computers:] Now this year there will be about 400 million PCs sold. I remember hearing that when there were 100 million PCs sold a year. So they've been doing this for a while. So you know, that's been going there's been discussion of that for a long time. But there seem to be more and more PCs being sold. There are about a billion and a half PCs in the world and so, you know, if you go out in the real world and look at how business is done, how people get, you know, productive work done, you see a lot of PCs. It's not to say there's not a role for smartphones and tablets. What really interesting is interesting, of course, about this announcement is now we have tablets that are also full PCs.
[Lake:] Right. And this clearly is geared, this overhaul is geared to work across that, right Steve, I mean, what is your response to is the PC dead?
[Steve Ballmer, Ceo, Microsoft:] I'd say the PC's never been dead, it never will die. [Inaudible]. It moves on. We started with desktops, for gosh sakes. And then, boom, PC gets reimagined in the big [inaudible]. And then laptops and then light notebooks and then ultrabooks. And now we have PCs as tablets. And the number of form factors.
[Quest:] That was an announcement, of course, from earlier in the year, Maggie. And it's [inaudible] Ballmer when they announced the tablets. But, Maggie, fundamentally, why would why would Michael Dell, as owning 15 percent or so of the company, why would he want to take it private?
[Lake:] Because he wants to redirect the company, despite those words. He understands the business is going someplace else. He has already been focusing more on services, on enterprise, kind of trying to redefine and in a similar way that IBM did. But maybe he wants to do it off the radar of Wall Street. Investors want quarter on quarter profits. Stocks Dell's stock lost a third of its value last year. So it may be that he just wants more time to execute. He doesn't want to have to do it with the short-term pressures of being a public company. But we'll have to see. Again, this is not confirmed; it is just speculation at this point, Richard.
[Quest:] Speculation and of course there's no guarantee it will happen. Maggie is in New York for us this evening. While we're talking technology, whether it be Dell, Microsoft or Apple, Java has a bug and a patch isn't good enough. Well, when I heard about this you know me I almost I started to wonder what on Earth was happening. Anyway, join me in the superscreen, the nerve center. Let's start with the basics. You all know, of course, many of you, that Java is the programming language. It's widely used. And it is used particularly because it is ambidextrous. It can be used it has a billion uses across multiple platforms, Windows, Mac and Linux, all can use it as well. It's in everything from DVD players, mechanical medicinal machines, you name it, it's in all of them. But the problem is the problem is that one doesn't want to work. So the problem is that a flaw has been found. Users are advised have been advised to disable the software because apparently the flow in Java allows hackers into your computer and we all know what can happen after that. Apparently this is in all versions according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and they say disable the Java. But Oracle has issued a patch and the patch can be found at Java.com. You can download it and it - use it from the Oracle website. Well, that should all be good enough and all nice, hunky-dory. Not so fast, young man, because Java says it will actually work, we don't well, rather, one expert says, "We don't dare to tell users that it's safe to enable Java again." So putting it simply, you have to decide whether to elect disable, take the risk or wait. "Profitable Moment" next.