Dell cuts prices on many corporate products
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Dell on Monday said it had cut prices by as much as fifth for a range of products aimed at US corporate customers, as the computer maker passed along savings from cheaper components.
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Dell Inc.  is leaving the LCD television business to focus on its core PC products amid an ongoing company overhaul by founder Michael Dell, Taiwan media reported on Thursday.
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Dell has scaled back the range of consumer PCs with processors from AMD that it sells on its Web site, focussing almost exclusively on systems with Intel processors.Dell&#39;s entire line of AMD-based laptops for consumers, as well as most of its AMD-based consumer desktops, will now be sold only through Dell&#39;s 10,000 retail outlets worldwide, said Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden.Except for one desktop, the Inspiron 531, which includes the AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ processor, Dell will focus its online consumer sales on Intel-based PCs. For businesses, Dell will continue to sell a range of AMD-based systems online.The decision, made this week, could be a setback for AMD. The Intel rival received a big boost in 2006 when Dell began offering its chips in desktops, laptops, and servers.AMD-based systems tend to be priced lower than Intel-based systems, so it makes sense for Dell to ship AMD products through retail channels, said Dean McCarron, founder and principal at Mercury Research.&quot;[Dell&#39;s decision] is not that surprising given that AMD&#39;s primary strength is the consumer retail channel,&quot; he said. Price points on PCs tend to be lower in the retail market, and retail buyers are more sensitive to cost than online buyers, McCarron said.AMD said the move was part of a strategy to offer a wider range of AMD-based PCs through retail channels. &quot;We are always evaluating product offerings and how customers can access them,&quot; Camden said.Not many consumers buy systems based on the processor type, she said, and few distinguish between AMD and Intel processors. Users select PCs based mostly on price and what they will use them for, such as surfing the Web or playing music and videos, she said.Dell has expanded its in-store offerings over the past six months by signing up more retailers, including Best Buy and Wal-Mart in the U.S., Tesco in the U.K., and Bic Camera in Japan.The retail strategy helped the company expand its lead over Hewlett-Packard as the largest U.S. PC vendor in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to IDC. However, HP remained the world&#39;s largest PC dealer, topping Dell, Acer and Lenovo, IDC said.Hewlett-Packard already offers more AMD-based PCs in retail than online, so Dell&#39;s decision isn&#39;t a first, McCarron said. Until it won over top-tier PC vendors several years ago, AMD relied on the retail market and white-box vendors for its chip sales.The effect of Dell&#39;s strategy shift on AMD remains to be seen, McCarron said. It is a large and important PC vendor, but it is also a relatively new partner for AMD.AMD has suffered some setbacks recently, reporting five straight quarterly losses and delaying shipments of some new desktop and server processors. Its market share was 23 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, down a fraction from the year before, while Intel&#39;s market share climbed slightly to 77 percent, according to IDC.
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Dell Inc  said it would sell personal computers, printers, monitors and ink supplies in 1,400 Staples Inc  stores in the United States, its latest move into retail after breaking from 23 years of selling directly to consumers.
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Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) has launched free recycling in several additional  markets worldwide, meeting a timetable set in June to provide free  recycling of any Dell-branded product for consumers worldwide as part of  its global recycling policy.
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Dell Inc. (DELL.O), the world's largest PC maker, said on Monday it has left the low-end consumer PC market in China and cut its overall growth target for the country this year due to stiff competition in the segment.
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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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Profits at Dell, the world's number two computer maker, soar 46% helped by lower component costs.
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Dell announced a host of changes to its device lineup and introduced several new products in an effort to retake some of the ground it has lost in the consumer market, as well as make itself more attractive at retail.
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Dell unveiled a new line of desktop and laptop computers that will ship without free and limited-use software.
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(InfoWorld) - In a bid to reassure nervous investorsÂ in the wake of a federal investigationÂ and aÂ battery recall, Dell executives have announced a corporate overhaul dubbed "Dell 2.0." The strategy calls for Dell to recover from slumping profits by making a series of basic changes, such as building factories closer to emerging markets, and putting more emphasis on industrial design, Chief Executive Officer Kevin Rollins said Tuesday in New York at Dell's annual Technology Day. "We've spent the last 22 years following the Dell business model, but as the marketplace changes, the needs and desires of our customers have also changed," Rollins said. "We are re-evaluating every aspect of our business model, from supply chain and design to customer service and support." Dell is suffering through a brutal stretch. The company announced on Monday that it would delay filing its quarterly Form 10-Q because an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had raised the possibility Dell might have to restate past quarterly earnings figures. And in August Dell worked with the Consumer Product Safety Commission to recall 4.1 million laptop batteries with a defect that could cause them to overheat and possibly catch fire. Under its new plan, the company will form a team of 60 designers by the end of 2006, dedicated to improving the design and usability of Dell PCs instead of focusing solely on price and performance. And the company has already begun to move away from its centralized production model by building PC factories in emerging markets like Brazil, India and Central Europe, he said. In other aspects of the overhaul, Dell said in July it wouldÂ begin using consistently low prices instead of complex rebates, and said in June it would offer enterprise-scale IT management to midsize companies under a Platinum Plus services plan. The strategy extends to products, too. Under the new strategy, Dell will continue to design PCs with chips from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD). Until recently, Dell had used only Intel Corp. processors, but this week launched two AMD-powered desktops and plans to sell AMD-based servers by the end of 2006. Dell's transition to a two-processor company is harder than simply swapping chips, said Chief Technology Officer Kevin Kettler. As Dell engineers create AMD-based PCs, they face a host of challenges -- testing and evaluating the systems, creating a logistics plan to supply processors to factories worldwide, and fitting the new components into their supply chain management plans. "Any time you bring on a new vendor to introduce a major piece of silicon, there's a natural process of aligning the new technology with our products," Kettler said. "I personally have worked for seven years with AMD on Dell's behalf, driving Opteron technology into the server space. This is not a short term, one-product-and-out deal, but a long-term relationship." In another design-centric change, Dell will join Hewlett-Packard Co. and Lenovo Group Ltd. to use DisplayPort, an interface standard that enables high-speed, two-way communications between PCs and displays. The new specs were approved in May by a governing body called the Video Electronics Standards Association. Under current technology, engineers use graphics controllers inside PCs and TVs to send signals to either digital or analog monitors ranging from CRTs (cathode ray tubes) to LCDs (liquid crystal displays) and plasma screens. "Those interfaces all just evolved, so you need to do development over three different interfaces with a multitude of technologies, and you can't take advantage of shared resources," said Kettler. In contrast, the new standard will use PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) Express interface to forge a "direct drive" link between the PC and monitor, always keeping the information in digital format. That will allow designers to build displays with embedded cameras and microphones, and will also preserve digital rights management, ensuring that data flowing across the cable can be only displayed, not copied, Kettler said. Â
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Dell Inc. plans to sell computers and other electronics gear at 1,400 Staples Inc. stores, the latest departure from the direct-to-customer business model pioneered by the No. 2 computer maker.
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NEW YORK -- Dell took the wraps off its holiday lineup this week, showing new printers, plasma televisions, and music players that will soon be available through its Web site.
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MacCentral - Dell Inc. took the wraps off its holiday lineup on Thursday, showing new printers, plasma televisions and music players that will soon be available through its Web site.
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Dell Inc. DELL.O, the world's  largest personal computer maker,  on Thursday posted a higher  quarterly profit, helped by market share gains and lower  component costs despite slowing demand for corporate PCs.
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By Acton, Ryann  SKANEATELES - Price-slashing on computers by companies such as Dell, Inc. (NYSE: DELL) and HewlettPackard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) forced Cary and Christine Briel to switch the focus of their company - Briel Computer & Network.
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Responding to customer complaints, Dell Inc. said Thursday it plans to gradually reduce its use of mail-in rebates and its often confusing array of other promotional offers.