Dell is shuttering it’s Parmer Lane facility, which employs approximately 900 people. The one great thing about making desktops in Austin was that you could get them delivered really quickly. Laptops haven’t been manufactured in Austin for a while now. It’s all part of the announced plan to reduce the workforce at Dell by 8,800 people.

Dell is one of the greatest startup stories to come out of Austin, and the talented “former Dell” folks have generated numerous startups of their own. As any fast-growing company will tell you, the growth rates can’t go on forever. There is also no escaping the fact that the world is flat. For a while, consumer technology was all the rage, but the Dell DJ wasn’t a huge hit, and the profit margins on Dell TV’s were slim. Dell is aggressively building their enterprise services business now, and is starting to look more like a diversified technology and services company along the lines of IBM and HP. Not bad role models, really.