Dell in a handbasket: Should founder Michael Dell resign?

With apologies to Warren Buffett, it's only when the tide comes in that you learn who can swim. With waves of growth on the horizon for the tech sector, it's becoming increasingly apparent that Dell (DELL), the declining PC powerhouse, cannot swim. So maybe it's time for Michael Dell (pictured) to hit the showers. The company's founder returned in January 2007, supposedly to save the company after it spent years adrift. But his performance of late has been so poor that it arguably represents a breach of his fiduciary duty to shareholders. What makes Dell's slide particularly troubling is the apparent strength of other companies in the tech sector, including makers of microchips, personal computers and enterprise servers.

"We think this is a Dell-specific problem," Broadpoint AMTech analyst Brian Marshall said in an interview with CNBC. "They've had some trouble over the last few years guiding their company from a strategic perspective."