Microsoft's $2 billion loan helped Michael Dell and partners purchase Dell for $24.4 billion.

First things first -- if you haven't heard by now, Dell is going private. Michael Dell, with the help of private equity firm Silver Lake and a significant loan from Microsoft, have agreed to pay Dell's public shareholders $13.65 a share, valuing the transaction at $24.4 billion. Now Mr. Dell is free to run the company without having to answer to shareholders, and while it will likely be years before we know if this was in the best interest of Dell, there's an interesting side story involving Microsoft that deserves attention.

Much to the chagrin of Acer, Microsoft is making a run at hardware with its Surface RT and Surface Pro tablets, and those might be only the first of many more products to come. Microsoft's dancing a fine line with hardware in trying to set the bar for Windows 8 devices without completely ticking off its OEM partners, but it's also taken a big step towards an Apple-like business model. If Microsoft decides to go further, a major acquisition starts to make sense, and two names that have been thrown out there are Nokia and Nvidia.

Dell may have to change its name to Daddy Big Bucks with the way it's throwing around cash in recent times. Having already made a number of software purchases this year, including a deal for for SonicWall back in March reportedly worth $1.2 billion, the latest domino to fall into Dell's hands is Quest Software. Dell has agreed to pay $28 per share in cash for each share of Quest, valuing the purchase price at around $2.4 billion.