Dell pushes Texas e-cycling law
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(InfoWorld) - Electronics manufacturers will have to collect and recycle outdated PCs -- but not TVs -- from consumers in Texas, according to a bill working its way through the state legislature that could become a model for other states. According to the legislation, called House Bill 2714, manufacturers would have to place a sticker on any computer or monitor they wanted to sell in the state, informing consumers that they may return the equipment to the vendor for recycling or reuse without paying an additional fee. Each manufacturer would then have to file an annual report to state regulators listing the weight of computer equipment they have recycled or reused. PCs and computer peripherals put out in curbside trash end up in landfills, where they can leach lead, mercury, and other toxins into the environment. "Texans generate a massive amount of 'e-waste' every year -- enough to threaten to overwhelm our landfills, let alone poison our air or water. But I believe that if we partner with manufacturers who are increasingly concerned about the issue, we can find a better home for our aging computers and iPods," said the bill's sponsor, Texas state Senator Kirk Watson, in a statement on his Web site. The bill passed votes in the state Senate and House of Representatives in May and awaits a signature from Texas Governor Rick Perry. A spokeswoman for the governor's office confirmed on Friday that Perry had received the bill but said he had not yet announced whether he would sign it by the June 17 deadline. Despite the bill's smooth progress through the Texas statehouse, some recycling experts warn that it is incomplete. The bill has a good fiscal structure as it assigns environmental responsibility to the PC manufacturer instead of the consumer, the state, or the landfill operator, said Ted Smith, senior strategist for the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. But the bill is flawed because it focuses only on PCs and their peripherals instead of covering a wider array of electronic equipment. "We prefer the 'producer responsibility' approach rather than the consumer fee approach, so that part we like," Smith said. "However, the Texas bill only applies to computers and not to TVs -- this is a major weakness and is as a result of Dell's lobbying position. TVs are just as toxic and problematic as computers, and we favor a comprehensive approach that covers both." Dell has a major corporate presence in the state as the world's second-largest PC vendor has headquarters in Round Rock, just outside of the state capital of Austin. On Friday, Dell denied opposing the inclusion of television sets in the law, but said that TVs do not fit easily into standard PC recycling streams because they include different components than computers and have a far longer lifecycle. "Our focus was, 'Let's make sure that IT and consumer electronics get in there, and if legislators want to put other electronics in the mix, that would be fine with us.' But what we didn't want to do was to slow or stall the process of the legislation," said Dell spokeswoman Colleen Ryan. In fact, if the law passes in its current form, it would have no impact on Dell's current recycling policies because the company already offers worldwide free recycling of used Dell equipment, she said. "Our take is that the marketplace is best positioned to address recycling and that the legislature shouldn't collect fees or create new government infrastructure for recycling. We think Texas is an opportunity to set an example for the rest of the nation." Dell is now working with policymakers in several other states to create the same type of "market-driven" approach to recycling, including electronics recycling bills now pending in North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Tennessee, she said. Those bills have a different model than existing laws in California, Maine, Maryland, and Washington, which impose taxes on consumers or fees on vendors in order to fund government programs that administer the recycling programs, she said. Despite the criticism of its lobbying efforts, Dell has announced a handful of recycling and power-efficiency iniatives in recent days. On Friday, Dell said that the EPEAT government procurement Web site awarded its highest rating to Dell's Latitude D630 notebook PC as well as the OptiPlex 740 and 745 desktops. Dell also announced a plan on Tuesday to reduce the carbon intensity of its global operations by 15 percent by 2012, helping reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. "We ultimately think this [state bill] is the simplest, most effective way to recycle outdated electronics, and we hope the governor sees it the same way," Ryan said.
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Dell Inc. , the No. 1 personal computer maker and the best customer of leading computer chip maker Intel , is mulling using rival chips from AMD , its chief executive said on Thursday.
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Texas proposal would force vendors to accept and recycle used equipment.
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Dell is pushing ahead with plans to open IT support hubs worldwide to improve its service delivery to buyers of its servers, storage devices and workstations.
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The already-bruising battle for control of the fast-growing Linux market has become even tougher after Dell (DELL:Nasdaq - news - research) announced Wednesday that it will distribute Novell&#39;s (NOVL:Nasdaq - news - research) version of the upstart
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LEADING computer-maker Dell has joined with a prominent internet group in the US to launch a campaign to help consumers fend off spyware.
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Dell is moving closer to announcing plans to build a new factory in the United States. The Round Rock, Texas, PC maker, is indeed eyeing a spot in North Carolina, as previously reported, for a plant that would
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Possibly launching a rival to Apple's iPod Mini, Dell is expected to unleash a number of consumer gadgets.
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Dell Inc has started using the social bookmarking model popularized by Digg.com as a form of suggestion box for its customers.
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SAN FRANCISCO/TAIPEI  - From Taiwan to Texas, the  specter of record-high oil prices has dampened expectations for  corporate technology spending, though some well-placed  companies such as low-cost computer maker Dell Inc. could be  spared, analysts said on Thursday.
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Dell Inc. is pushing ahead with plans to open IT support hubs worldwide to improve its service delivery to buyers of its servers, storage devices and workstations. Although the hubs are aimed primarily at enterprise customers, they will also cover consumers and small and midsize businesses.
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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 (NASDAQ:DELL) is the recipient of the National  Recycling Coalition's ninth annual  Recycling Works Award for its longstanding efforts to promote individual  producer responsibility.
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AUSTIN, Texas _ Dell Inc. expanded its share of the personal-computer market in the third quarter, taking advantage of its traditionally strong commercial sales in the period to extend its lead over rival Hewlett-Packard Co.
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Michael Dell has seen the future and it&#39;s a 128-node &quot;MegaGrid&quot; running the Linux operating system on Dell servers at Dell&#39;s lab in Austin, Texas.
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A patchwork of electronics recycling laws is emerging from state capitals across the country, presenting manufacturers with a major challenge and Congress with a golden opportunity, the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) said today.  Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Connecticut Gov. M.
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Dell Inc. on Thursday continued its push beyond the PC into consumer electronics with the introduction of a mini-version of its digital music player that will compete with Apple Computer Inc.