Dell continues retail push with colorful PCs
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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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NEW YORK _ Dell Inc. ventured deeper into consumer electronics Thursday, adding plasma televisions to its growing lineup of home-entertainment products.
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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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(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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(InfoWorld) - Dell will officially launch its first three consumer PCs running the Ubuntu 7.04 Linux OS on Thursday, two desktops and an Inspiron E1505n notebook PC. The new modelsÂ give buyers a third choiceÂ when shopping for a PC at Dell: a machine with Windows installed, a machine with no OS, on which they can install one of their choice, and now a machine with Ubuntu Linux already installed. Other PC makers, including Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo Group,Â  also sell PCs that run Linux, but mainly on customized machines, because retail demand for the open-source OS is tiny compared to that for Windows. The PCs will be available in the U.S. after 4 p.m. Central Time fromÂ Dell's Web site. The laptop starts at $599, while the two desktops, the Dimension E520 and XPS 410n, start from $599 and $849 each, respectively. A comparable XPS 410 with Windows Vista Premium costs $899. Dell announcedÂ what flavor of Linux it would use in the PCs, Ubuntu 7.04, earlier this month. It's the same OS Michael Dell, the chairman and CEO of the company, uses on his Dell Precision M90 laptop at home. Dell is targeting the Linux enthusiast market with the PCs, and said the choice of systems is a response to customer feedback collected atÂ a Web siteÂ set up to solicit customer suggestions. Over 100,000 people participated in surveys about the systems and what kind of Linux to install in the machines, Dell said in a statement. The three PCs all use Intel Core 2 Duo microprocessors. The two desktops contain 1GB of RAM and 250GB of hard disk space, while the laptop includes 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard disk drive. Users will be able to choose from several hardware options on their Ubuntu PCs from Dell. The options offered contain the most mature and stable Linux driver support, and Dell plans to work with vendors to ensure more devices include Linux driver support in the future, it said. Dell is offering hardware support for the PCs through its existing channels, with basic software help from several dedicated Web sites and Linux forums. Canonical is offering software service upgrades from theÂ Ubuntu Web site. The company also created theÂ Dell Linux ForumÂ for users to find resources, troubleshoot, discuss issues, and share experiences about the new PCs. Â
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Dell Inc. , the world's largest personal computer maker, on Tuesday unveiled a range of business computers, with some that meet stringent new environmental regulations and others that take steps to prevent network intrusions and theft of intellectual property.
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By Ryan Blitstein, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Feb. 26--Dell is planning to offer desktop computers and laptops with hardware designed to work with the Linux operating system, according to a statement posted Friday on the company's Web site.
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Emerging LED technology will boost the colors in a flat-panel display.
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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 will sell PCs through stores in Asia and Australia, talking to retail partners now.
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Dell debuted the latest additions to its Axim PDA line-up: three new models based on Intel&#39;s newest processor and mobile graphics technology, and ready to accept tracks downloaded from Windows Media-based online music stores.
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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 has begun selling two PCs and a notebook pre-installed with the Ubuntu Linux distributions, responding to demand from Linux enthusiasts on its IdeaStorm site.
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South African PC demand looks set to keep pace with the good worldwide demand, with rand strength, product bundling
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The company shows a flair for design with its new line of notebooks, as it branches out into the consumer retail PC market.
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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 has entered into an agreement with Wal-Mart that will put its desktops in 3,400 of the chain's stores beginning June 10, retailing for under $700.