Dell's Strong Numbers Shadowed by 'Ongoing' SEC Probe

It's hard to quibble with success, and Dell's most recent quarterly financials show lots of success.

The company has also signed up 3,500 channel partners worldwide since late last year, and its channel business is now at a $12 billion annual, global run rate, according to Michael Dell. The Round Rock, Texas-based company blew Wall Street's expectations out of the water even with a sluggish, U.S. economy. (Sort of puts to bed all those shots at Dell being way too U.S.-centric to compete with Hewlett-Packard, doesn't it?)

Dell is rolling out tons of new products. It's working with solution providers. It's making its financial numbers amid tough competition.

But how can numbers that look so good feel so wrong?

In the fine print of its earnings announcement Thursday night, Dell acknowledged a caveat that its report was subject to "any additional issues or matters that may arise from the ongoing SEC investigation." The SEC investigation appears to stem from accounting irregularities that the company revealed last year, although Dell has refused to name names for individuals who were involved.

(Dell had previously stated the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York was conducting a similar probe, but made no mention of federal prosecutors in its statement.)

Even though the company sought to put the entire matter to bed last year, Dell reported "$19 million in expense, or one cent per share, in investigation related costs" for its most recent, three-month period. That's about $211,111 for every single day during the quarter - - including Saturdays and Sundays. Lawyers and accountants are expensive. But $211,111 a day? For an investigation that Dell wanted put to bed last year? Lawyers and accountants tend to get their bills to the client right away, so while it's possible some of that investigative expense was from previous months it's hard to imagine much of it was.

Dell has made radical changes to its upper management over the past two years, significant changes to its accounting and reporting and, perhaps importantly, changes to a once numbers-mad corporate culture that appeared to put a penny or two per share each quarter ahead of customer satisfaction and strong strategic vision. Yet this investigation continues.

Many channel partners and customers are showing - - through the new numbers alone - - that they like the new Dell. But the old numbers are still there, between the fine print, and costing Dell every single day.