Dell released its financial report yesterday for the first quarter of the company's 2014 fiscal year and the overall numbers are positively dismal: a 79 percent drop in net income from the same quarter in FY13. In the first quarter last year Dell reported an overall net income (GAAP) of $635 million; this year for Q1, net income has plummeted to $130 million.

Reuters, CBS News, and tons of other sites are carrying news of the sharp decrease in earnings along with much speculation on what the report means for the company's future. Company founder Michael Dell is engaged in a war with the company's board of directors and other shareholders over whether or not to take the company private and how much it should cost to do so, and the latest financial statements provide ammunition to both sides in that argument.

If Michael Dell is able to get shareholders to accept his $24.4 billion offer to buy back the company it's a virtual certainty that he will push the company to shed its ailing consumer PC manufacturing and sales business. The numbers do indeed show that a strategy focusing on high-end (and high-margin) enterprise services and equipment has some merit. According to the Reuters report revenue from Dell's enterprise solutions, services, and software group actually increased by 12 percent.

CBS points out however that two-thirds of Dell's overall revenue still comes from PC sales. Weakening worldwide demand for PCs and laptops and increased competition from Asian manufacturers mean that in spite of gains in the enterprise, the shape of the PC market still sets the direction of Dell's profits. For now this won't change unless the company's leadership (in whatever form that ends up taking) decides to massively restructure the company's product offerings.