Dell describes cost cuts in leaked memo
600993
Also on the docket: to turn a focus on the small and midsize business sector, enterprise servers and storage, shorter design cycles for new products, and increased sales in emerging markets.
618011
DALLAS -- Dell Inc., the world's largest PC maker, has delayed filing its fiscal second-quarter financial report and suspended its share-repurchase program because of an ongoing federal accounting probe.
24235
(InfoWorld) - Dell is in the final phases of an internal audit of its finances, the company said Thursday as it told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission it will delay filing an audited earnings report for the fourth consecutive quarter. The company began the audit in an effort to comply with accounting investigations by the SEC and theÂ U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Although the investigations have not yet led to a conclusion, Dell has already felt the impact on its bottom line -- the company spent $46 million on the investigation during the latest quarter alone. Dell is also staving off a threat by the Nasdaq stock exchange to delist its stock as punishment for failing to file official quarterly reports, called Forms 10-Qs, for the second, third, and fourth quarters of fiscal 2007, and now the first quarter of fiscal 2008. At the same time,Â Dell has been struggling in the marketplace. On May 31, the company announced a plan toÂ lay off 10 percent of its 88,100 workers, in a continuing search for richer profits. The company earned $759 million for the first quarter compared to $762 million in the same quarter last year. However, those numbers are subject to change if Dell management decides to restate its earnings, the company warned in the SEC filing. The company's audit committee stated in March that it hadÂ found evidence of misconductÂ and accounting errors, and now says it is reviewing each of those errors and proposing corrections. The committee will then decide whether to restate earnings. Dell management will also determine whether there is "a material weakness in the company's internal controls over financal reporting" and whether its "disclosure controls and procedures are not effective," the filing said. A company spokeswoman declined to give further details on the audit committee's progress, saying that the latest SEC report is just a formal confirmation of Dell's warning in May that its first-quarter results were only preliminary.
34016
Intel has slashed prices by up to 35 percent on some of its  Pentium 4 and Itanium processors, bringing down the costs of some desktop and notebook computers by as much as &#36;200.
405853
(InfoWorld) - Anyone looking to add a bit more memory to their computers won a gift from the DRAM (dynamic RAM) industry. Heavy competition has caused prices to tumble and industry analysts predict further price declines. The contract price of the most widely used DRAM chips, 512Mb, DDR2 (double data rate, second generation) chips that run at 667MHz dropped 12.5 percent from two weeks ago to $1.75 each as of Thursday, a new low for this year according to DRAMeXchange Technology, which runs an online trading site for the chips. That's great news for users for three reasons. DRAM price declines increase the likelihood that PC vendors such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell will add more DRAM to the computers they sell, or offer extra DRAM as an incentive; it give users a chance to buy more DRAM on the cheap; and it generallyÂ spurs memory chip makers to move forward on new technologyÂ that will ultimately increase computing performance. Contract DRAM prices for DDR2-667 chips have plunged 70.5 percent so far this year to the Thursday low. The main reason is because memory chip makers built too many new production lines in anticipationÂ of strong demand for Microsoft's Windows Vista, which requires more DRAM per PC, as well as because stronger DRAM prices in general for the past few years was a sign to some that the market had stabilized, analysts say. DRAM prices may continue to decline a bit further, but downside appears limited, according to Gartner. Today's pricing is at a similar level to the lows reached in May of this year, when DRAM makers refused to sell because the price had hit their cash cost. "However, we may see some activity below this level, because some brokers and distributors who are holding inventory may be prepared to sell at a lower price to clear stock," the market researcher said. Over the years, DRAM makers have tended to place more emphasis on winning market share than on profits, and the current DRAM price declines are symptomatic of their battles. Companies have invested so much money in new factories that the increased output has caused a glut, leading to price declines. Prices for DRAM chips fellÂ almost 40 percent in the first half of this year, compared to the first half of 2006, offsetting a 66 percent increase in unit shipments, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. Contract prices are typically renegotiated between DRAM makers and PC vendors every two weeks. Around four fifths of all DRAM is sold by contract, while the rest is sold on the spot market, just like commodities such as oil and gold. Â
622377
Dell Inc , the world's second-largest personal computer maker, on Thursday reported higher-than-expected profit as it benefited from lower costs for disk drives, microprocessors and other components.
689097
Just two weeks after revealing that some employees had falsified corporate revenue to meet earnings targets, Dell Inc. reported a profit of US$733 million for its fiscal 2008 second quarter, up 46 percent from its mark of $502 million for the same period last year.
642544
Still gasping fromÂ the resignation of its chief executiveÂ in January andÂ an ongoing investigation of its accounting practices, Dell reported fourth quarter profits of $673 million, down sharply from the $1 billion it reported for the same period last year.
654944
Dell has cut prices on a number of products geared to enterprises. The PowerEdge 4600 dual-processor server price tag has been trimmed by about 22 percent, now starting as low as $4,194.
185705
Blog: Hewlett-Packard allegedly obtained 'confidential' material related to Dell's printing business, according to Fortune magazine, citing unnamed former HP employees.
667019
Dell Inc. DELL.O on Monday said  it had cut prices by as much as fifth for a range of products  aimed at U.S. corporate customers, as the computer maker passed  along savings from cheaper components.
522729
Dell announced early this morning it has received a notice from the NASDAQ stock exchange threatening the company with a possible de-listing if it continues to delay the filing of its quarterly 10-Q report.  Dell remains the target of an SEC probe, and may have to restate its earnings back several years.
259587
Dell Inc has dismissed out of hand a rumor that has been doing the rounds recently that the firm has been quietly preparing a substantial distribution channel in the UK and elsewhere.
399823
Dell has taken an aggressive pricing strategy in its competition with Apple in the music player space. Jupiter Research analyst Joe Wilcox reported in his blog today that Dell has dropped pricing on the 15
728115
Dell Inc. has cut prices as much as 22 percent on selected computer equipment for US corporate and institutional customers, saying it was passing along savings from lower component prices.
429517
Stock rises as memo reveals Michael Dell's plans for the company.
138817
Dell CEO Michael Dell&#160;plans to announce a series of new products aimed at making life easier for IT managers.The announcement of these products is scheduled to happen during a keynote by Dell at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco Nov. 14.&quot;What you&#39;re going to hear Michael talk about ... is some real products and services coming down the pipe here very shortly on how we simplify IT for customers of all sizes,&quot; said Brad Anderson, senior vice president and general manager of Dell&#39;s Business Products Group, during an interview.Among the products and services that Dell plans to announce are a cheaper and simpler virtualization product, new blade servers for large datacenters, and IT support services for small companies that face the same challenges confronted by corporations with large IT departments but don&#39;t have the same resources, Anderson said.The ultimate aim of these products and services is to help reduce the costs companies bear when they purchase new computers or roll out new software applications.&quot;You&#39;ve got to think about how customers procure [IT products like a server], how they deploy it, how they manage it on an ongoing basis, how they dynamically reconfigure it for their changing requirements, and maybe how they retire it,&quot; Anderson said. &quot;How can we really streamline and simplify each step of that lifecycle so the customer invests less of his or her money to go do those things?&quot;This effort to make lives easier for IT managers will start at the manufacturing level, where Dell is offering customers the ability to have PCs and servers shipped with software applications pre-installed and tested, Anderson said.&#160;