Dell to sell PCs at Wal-Mart in retail push
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SAN FRANCISCO/BOSTON  - Dell Inc.  said on  Thursday it plans to start selling personal computers through  Wal-Mart Stores Inc.  in North America next month,  breaking from a 23-year model of direct sales as it tries to  rekindle business.
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Dell&#39;s retail strategy to distribute PCs is starting to show results, helping extend its lead over Hewlett-Packard as the largest U.S. PC vendor in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to figures from analyst firms Gartner and IDC.However,&#160;HP remained the world&#39;s largest PC dealer, topping Dell, Acer, and Lenovo, according to figures from both firms.Dell shipped 5.5 million units in the U.S., a 15.2 percent year-over-year increase and a 29.6 percent market share, according to IDC. HP, in second place, shipped 4.5 million units, a 9.8 percent year-over-year increase and a 24.3 percent market share. Acer, in third place, showed tremendous growth in the U.S., with shipments increasing 294.2 percent to 1.5 million units. Apple&#39;s shipments grew 30.9 percent to 1.06 million, a 5.7 percent market share. Toshiba was in fifth place, IDC said.Gartner reported that Dell shipped 5.35 million units, with a 31.4 percent market share during the fourth quarter, compared to the 29.3 percent market share it had last year. HP shipped 4.4 million units, with market share growing to 26.1 percent from 25.5 percent last year. Acer and Apple were in third and fourth places, respectively.Dell&#39;s switch from a direct sales model to&#160;selling PCs through retailers like Best Buy&#160;and&#160;Wal-Mart&#160;is paying off and has helped the company improve shipments, said David Daoud, an analyst with IDC. &quot;They&#39;re coming out of nowhere to everywhere,&quot; Daoud said.However, Dell is trying to catch up internationally with HP, which is investing more in distribution channels and understands business behavior in emerging markets better, Daoud said.According to IDC, HP shipped 14.7 million units worldwide, a 23.3 percent year-over-year growth and a 19 percent market share. Dell was in second place, shipping 11.3 million units with a 14.6 global market share, a 17.1 percent rise from the previous year. Acer saw a sharp rise, with shipments growing 60.3 percent year-over-year to 7.4 million. Lenovo came in fourth, shipping 5.8 million units, a 22.3 percent year-over-year increase. Toshiba was in fifth place.The&#160;acquisitions of Packard Bell and Gateway&#160;last year helped boost Acer&#39;s shipment volumes globally, though the companies have not yet fully contributed. &quot;Given the acquisitions are relatively recent, it will takes years or more to see tangible results,&quot; Daoud said.Acer&#39;s acquisitions have taken a bite out of Lenovo, which saw slower growth in the global market and is struggling to retain its core audience of business users, Daoud said. With the launch of the IdeaPad notebook, Lenovo is trying to expand to the mass consumer market, which has alienated its traditional business users. Lenovo needs to reassert its commitment to business customers, Daoud said.Lenovo also needs to acquire PC vendors if it wants to expand the way Acer did, although there are not many major PC vendors left for it to acquire, Daoud said.The surveys include shipments of desktops, notebooks, and ultraportable notebooks with up to 7-inch screens.
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Dell Inc , said on Friday  British retailer Tesco  will sell Dell personal  computers in outlets across Europe.
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Dell Inc  said on Monday it  would sell its latest range of personal computers through  China's largest electronics retailer, GOME Group, aiming to  improve on its single-digit mainland market share.
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Dell will sell PCs through stores in Asia and Australia, talking to retail partners now.
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Dell Inc.  said on Friday  it would sell notebook computers at more than 580 of Wal-Mart  Stores Inc.'s  Sam's Club outlets for $899 each starting  next week, its latest move to sell computers in retail chains.
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Don't look on the Dell Web site for home AMD-based PCs. The company is selling them only in brick and mortar stores or via phone orders now.
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Dell Inc., the world's second-largest computer maker, said on Thursday it will soon start selling its laptops and desktops at Asian retail chains and stores.
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(InfoWorld) - The new team of leaders at Dell is weighing a request to give customers the option to purchase PCs with the Linux OS, instead of the default Windows, after thousands of users voted for that idea on a company blog. The idea appeared Friday on a company-hosted blog called Dell Idea Storm. CEO Michael Dell unveiled the blog Feb. 16 as part of hisÂ effort to reinvigorate the struggling company. Dell said he hoped to use the blog to collect users' feedback and improve customer service. Since then, company executives and department heads have been monitoring the site, paying closest attention to the ideas winning the most votes, Dell spokeswoman Caroline Dietz said on Wednesday. The most popular threads on Wednesday included demands for Linux-based laptops, consumer PCs that are not pre-loaded with unsolicited applications and requests for Sun Microsystems' OpenOffice applications instead of Microsoft's Office suite. Popular requests also included a preference for Mozilla's Firefox Web browser instead of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and pleas for Dell to stop routing service calls to operators in overseas countries such as India. Dell leaders have heard those ideas "loud and clear," and plan to post a statement on the blog this week explaining how they will react, Dietz said. But she warned that the company would judge ideas on more than just their popularity. "Just because an idea is number one or number two doesn't necessarily mean Dell will do it, but it does mean it will receive the highest level of attention," she said. Dell has already changed the blog rules to make the voting more accurate, after the site was flooded over the weekend by certain users clicking multiple times on their favorite links, Dietz said. Beginning Wednesday, Dell required users to register, ensuring that each person can vote just once for each posting. Another misleading aspect of popular threads is that each vote awards postings 10 "points," meaning that the Linux thread has about six thousand supporters, not the posted number of 67,703. The second-most popular thread -- the request for OpenOffice -- has 40,572 points, and a plea to avoid unwanted software applications has 27,476 points. Most other ideas on the 95-page blog have won only a handful of votes. Despite the blog's problems, Dell will someday decide to sell Linux-based PCs in their consumer market, experts say. "Look, they already have a strong partnership with Red Hat and Oracle to move Linux into the enterprise server space. I think what they're waiting for is some more compelling applications to show up on Linux for personal use. Think about what you use your laptop for -- it's usually office, games, music and Internet access. When all of these things come together in a consumer-friendly, seamless way there will be a case for Dell to adopt Linux on portables to sell to the masses," said Joe Clabby, president of Clabby Analytics. "My 84 year-old father-in-law only needs his PC for light word processing and for AOL access. He can get plenty of Linux word processors -- but where's AOL Linux? When the right applications show up, and when they are integrated, it will all come together," Clabby said. Fixing Dell's finances could call for such a bold move. Once a Wall Street darling thanks to its innovative "direct sales" business model, Dell has struggled in recent months with falling profits, anÂ accounting investigationÂ by federal stock regulators, a lawsuit by disgruntled investors, aÂ notebook battery recallÂ and finally the resignation on Jan. 31 of Dell's hand-picked successor as CEO, Kevin Rollins. SinceÂ resuming his job as CEOÂ of the company he founded in 1984, Dell has moved quickly to restore investors' confidence by ousting several long-time executives and replacing them with leaders from outside technology companies including Motorola and Selectron. Â
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Dell Inc , the world's No.2  personal computer maker, said it would sell its latest range  through China's largest electronics retailer, GOME Group,  aiming to improve on its single-digit mainland market share.
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Wal-Mart, through Walmart.com, its online vehicle, has charged into the Linux-based notebook market with its US$498 Balance laptop, which runs the Linspire operating system.
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Dell Inc. DELL.O, the world's  largest PC maker, could announce an expanded selection of its  consumer electronics line in the next several weeks, a retail  industry analyst said on Wednesday.
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Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world is offering an ultra-cheap laptop powered by Linux: The Balance 14.1&quot; Notebook Computer.
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Dell recently announced that it's partnering with Wal-Mart. So what's in store for Dell?
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Dell Inc , the world's No.2 personal computer maker, said it would sell its latest range through China's largest electronics retailer, GOME Group, aiming to improve on its single-digit mainland market share.
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(InfoWorld) - Underlining its expansion from online to retail sales, Dell launched desktop and notebook PCs Tuesday at Macy's department store in New York. The company announced nine new Inspiron desktops and notebooks and an XPS M1330 notebook, all available in a choice of eight shell colors. "The Dell of today is vastly different from the Dell of six months ago or even last week," said Alex Gruzen, senior vice president of Dellâs consumer product group. "We're here at Macy's in New York City. That alone is different for Dell, being in a department store or any kind of retail setting at all." Dell even set up a portable kiosk to take orders for the new PCs in a temporary space it will occupy at Macy's for the next two weeks, he said. The new Inspiron notebooks cost $749 for the model 1521 to $999 for the model 1720, with a choice of processors from Intel or Advanced Micro Devices. The Inspiron 1420 comes with an additional choice of Microsoft's Windows Vista or the Ubuntu Linux operating system, for $799. The Inspiron desktops start at $349 for models 530, 530s, 531, and 531s, all supporting up to 500GB of disk space to store digital media files, with the model 530 offering a choice between Windows and Linux. The XPS M1330 notebook costs $1,299 with a 13.3-inch widescreen display, weighs under 4 pounds, and comes with a one-year subscription to Dell's Online Backup service, where users can store 10GB of files on Dell servers for remote data access. In an effort to bolster its sliding market share and quarterly profits,Â Dell began selling certain PC models at Wal-MartÂ retail stores on June 10, marking the first time it had strayed from the direct sales model. Dell rose to prominence by cutting its costs through eliminating retail middlemen and selling its PCs through only its Web site, phone lines, and catalogs. That system began to fail in 2006, as competitors cut costs and Hewlett-Packard passed Dell to become the world's largest PC vendor. Now Dell is in the midst of a corporate reorganization announced May 31 that includesÂ laying off 10 percent of its 88,100 workers. Dell hopes its new retail presence will allow it to fix a strategic mistake. By trying to beat its competitors through low prices in recent years, Dell found itself spending all its publicity efforts promoting its least exciting products, Gruzen said. Selling PCs in retail stores gives Dell an opportunity to showcase its premium PC models and bring new luster to its corporate image at the same time. "This is really just a hint of what we're doing to get these exciting new products into customers' hands," Gruzen said. "We have a broader retail strategy, and over the coming months, we will announce more partnerships, both with Wal-Mart and with other retailers." Also on Tuesday, Dell unveiled a new marketing tagline -- "yours is here" -- that shares many values with HP's "the computer is personal again" campaign. Both companies are increasing the number of options they give customers to personalize PCs and bundling tools that make it easier to handle personal tasksÂ such asÂ digital photos and music as well as business jobs. Dell emphasized those increased choices with its color options for each PC, including pink, yellow, green, red, and blue, as well as standard white and black. An increasing number of PC vendors will soon begin to follow that pattern, trying to differentiate themselves with flashy style and design instead of solely through technical detailsÂ such asÂ processing power, according to a report released this week by Forrester Research. "The consumer PC industry is entering the Age of Style, a time in which radical form factor innovations, increased aesthetic diversity, and consumer choice and personalization will determine which models, and which PC vendors, win or lose," Forrester analyst J.P. Gownder said in the report.
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Dell Inc. plans to sell personal computers at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, in a departure from Dell's approach of selling machines only directly to customers.