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Breaking a purely direct-sales model it has used for more than a decade, Dell Inc. said that it would begin to sell desktop personal computers in Wal-Mart Stores Inc. next month. Dell said it plans to offer two Dimenson desktop models in 3000 Wal-Mart stores in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico starting June 10th. In a statement, Dell spokesman Bob Pearson said, "Our customers are asking us for additional ways to purchase our products and we plan on delivering on a global level. Offering Dell Dimensions in Wal-Mart is a great example of this approach." Today's announcement represents the...

Consumers Allege They Didn't Get the Tech Support They Paid For The computer company said it would "vigorously defend" itself in court. Dell is the No. 2 computer seller in the United States, but now some say the technology giant is ripping off its customers. New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has filed a lawsuit against Dell, accusing the company of deceptive, fraudulent and illegal business practices. "You can have aggressive marketing, and if you go too far it's consumer fraud," Cuomo said Tuesday. "In our opinion they went too far, and this is consumer fraud. They offered a...

In 2004, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series. In 2007, Dell, a top computer manufacturer, is introducing pre-installed Ubuntu Linux on its main PC lines. The worlds of baseball and the desktop will never be the same. Dell also is saying something else that's equally important about the desktop world. It's saying, for the first time in more than a decade, that standard x86 PC users have a choice. For the first time since OS/2 mattered, users have a choice again. No more are users stuck with Windows. No more are they forced to pay the Microsoft tax.

In a joint statement released today, Dell Inc. and Canonical Ltd. announced that Dell will now offer laptops and desktop computers pre-installed with Ubuntu Linux 7.04. The computers will be sold via Dell's web site, said Canonical's director of operations Jane Silber. "We have worked with Dell to get Ubuntu fully supported and fully certified on Dell hardware," she said. "Ubuntu has the full endorsement of Dell."

When large businesses buy new PCs, they often wipe the hard drives clean and install a fresh copy of Windows, along with the other software they want workers to have. Some consumers, frustrated with all of the trial software, desktop icons and other stuff that comes loaded on their machines, are doing the same thing. However, what works for businesses isn't always so easy for individuals. Many computers don't actually come with a clean copy of the operating system. Instead, many ship with a "recovery partition" or a recovery disc that restores the system back to the way it shipped--with...

Every Sunday, I get a Dell Support pop-up which tells me to go to this site and download some driver: http://updates.visualnetworks.com/ I am hesitant to do this as I do not know anything about it and there is no explanation other than Dell saying my computer might suffer crashes if I do not update my network monitoring services.

I’m watching the progress that Dell is making with their second desktop Linux effort and am increasingly wondering how long before the Linux supporters make it clear to Dell this is a bad idea. While some are being patient, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that many don’t fundamentally understand why this is vastly more difficult than it looks, and why Dell will desperately need their support, not their constant criticism, to justify continuing the effort. This week let me try to explain why it is nearly impossible, but not actually impossible, to do desktop Linux from an OEM’s...

Earlier this month, Dell had reinstituted Windows XP as an option on small business computers, citing the need for more time to transition to Windows Vista. Now, following overwhelming demand expressed through Dell's IdeaStorm Web site, Dell is bringing back Windows XP for several consumer desktop and notebook PCs.

It appears that Dell, which has slipped to the number two PC maker in the world, is determined to follow the advice of consumers on its IdeaStorm website and see where it takes them. The novel approach has already led Dell to commit itself to bring pre-installed Linux computers to market and the latest move pits the powerful PC vendor against the might of Microsoft. Dell will sell XP Home and Professional on six PC models including two desktops and four notebooks. Although Microsoft has said publicly that it will stop offering licences for XP to PC vendors from January...

Dell today revealed that it will restore the option to use Windows XP on some of its home systems, marking a potentially damaging blow to Microsoft's hopes for the newer Windows Vista. The Dimension E520 and E521 as well as virtually all of the company's Inspiron notebooks can immediately be custom-ordered with XP in Home or Professional editions, giving cautious buyers the opportunity to use the earlier OS. The change in policy was the result of user feedback, Dell claims. While a popular request through the company's IdeaStorm website, the choice was substantially outnumbered by requests for pre-installed Linux, US-based...

What operating system do the heads of Fortune 500 companies run on their personal laptops? In the case of Michael S. Dell, president and CEO of Dell, it's Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn.

The company said after U.S. markets closed that an audit panel had found accounting errors and evidence of misconduct. Dell also said it will delay filing its Form 10-K until it has completed an internal investigation.

Computer giant Dell will start to sell PCs preinstalled with open source Linux operating systems, the firm has said. The second largest computer maker in the world said it had chosen to offer Linux in response to customer demand. Earlier this year, 100,000 people took part in a Dell survey. More than 70% of respondents said they would use Linux.

Dell has heard you and we will expand our Linux support beyond our existing servers and Precision workstation line. Our first step in this effort is offering Linux pre-installed on select desktop and notebook systems. We will provide an update in the coming weeks that includes detailed information on which systems we will offer, our testing and certification efforts, and the Linux distribution(s) that will be available. The countdown begins today.

Despite years of success Dell has fallen on hard times. The company who practically reinvented the way people buy computers has been under-performing and investors are worried. The company has been losing market share and no longer has the edge it once had over competitors like HP and Gateway. There has been much talk about Dell taking steps to make up lost ground by selling computers that use Linux for their operating system. This is something many people are interested in but unfortunately not something that will turn around the company. As a Linux user (on a few but not...

Dell Inc. began polling customers about their software preferences on Tuesday as part of an effort by the struggling PC vendor to meet a popular request for desktops and notebooks that run on Linux instead of Windows. Dell posted the survey on a company blog, asking PC users to choose between Linux flavors such as Fedora and Ubuntu, and to pick more general choices such as notebooks versus desktops, high-end models versus value models and telephone-based support versus community-based support.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- When Microsoft Corp. delivers a mysterious prototype for government testing this coming week, it will mark a crucial juncture for a high-stakes bid to change the way consumers get their Internet access. That bid has cast Microsoft and a group of powerful allies from Silicon Valley in the relatively unfamiliar role of Washington policy players. Microsoft's prototype, delivered on behalf of the group, is a wireless device that could provide the public with free and more widespread access to the Web instead of relying on networks owned by big telecom and cable firms. That breakthrough,...

Pre-Installed Linux Options It’s exciting to see the IdeaStorm community’s interest in open source solutions like Linux and OpenOffice. Your feedback has been all about flexibility and we have seen a consistent request to provide platforms that allow people to install their operating system of choice. We are listening, and as a result, we are working with Novell to certify our corporate client products for Linux, including our OptiPlex desktops, Latitude notebooks and Dell Precision workstations. This is another step towards ensuring that our customers have a good experience with Linux on our systems. As this community knows, there is...

According to newly revealed information, Dell customers are wanting Linux pre-installed on their notebooks and desktop PCs. In fact, it is one of the most requested features from this leading PC manufacturer; having the ability to multi-boot into Windows XP or Windows Vista or no Microsoft partition at all are among the options. More information is available at Dell Idea Storm.

Here's the situation: While attempting to uninstall something, the machine froze, and so I attempted to reboot, and it's never booted since.So, I tried to reinstall Windows XP Pro, and it still hangs on the boot.I've run chkdsk numerous times, tried booting from a different hard drive and accessing the data by making this drive a USB device, and the system won't recognize it.Needless to say I deleted my backups... So, there is some important data on this drive, lots of written work, some r&d, a lot of sentimental stuff, all important email addresses, etc.Can anyone offer any advice besides,...

Last week it was the music labels, this week it was teacher unions. Apple cofounder and CEO Steve Jobs on Friday spared no words in criticizing the state of public schools and the teacher unions, saying that schools were never likely to improve until principals could fire bad teachers. The Associated Press notes that Jobs shared the stage with rival CEO Michael Dell to deliver their vision of technology in classrooms. Jobs, who is known to be quite intolerant of what he calls incompetence at his own company, touted a text-book free classroom, but reiterated that no amount of technology...

AUSTIN - Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs lambasted teacher unions Friday, claiming no amount of technology in the classroom would improve public schools until principals could fire bad teachers. Jobs compared schools to businesses with principals serving as CEOs. "What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good?" he asked to loud applause during an education reform conference. "Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, 'I can't win.'" In a rare joint...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- If Michael Dell thought he would get a warm and easy welcome back as Dell Inc.'s chief executive, the events of Friday showed that restoring investor confidence and competing against a revitalized Hewlett-Packard Co. are just the beginning of a litany of dramas that the company founder faces. Allegations of widespread insider trading by several Dell (DELL : dell inc com News , chart, profile, more Last: 23.91+0.39+1.66%10:06am 02/05/2007Delayed quote dataAdd to portfolioAnalyst Create alert InsiderDiscussFinancials Sponsored by: DELL23.91, +0.39, +1.7% ) executives, including Dell and former CEO Kevin Rollins, were at the core of an...

BREAKING NEWS: Dell said its CEO Kevin Rollins has resigned and will be replaced by founder Michael Dell. Mr. Dell will remain the PC maker's chairman. Full article coming shortly.

A fire at San Francisco's Crissy Field sparked by an electric car was the second blaze in just over a year at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area that was caused by an apparently defective electric vehicle, a parks spokesman said today. The vehicle was not plugged in when it caught fire while parked outside the Warming Hut, a historic building in the Presidio of San Francisco renovated as a showcase for sustainable design. UPDATE: ELECTRIC CAR WAS NOT PLUGGED IN BEFORE SF FIRE 01/26/07 4:20 PST SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) A fire at San Francisco's Crissy Field sparked by an...

Barely a week after a U.S. judge approved a landmark antitrust agreement with Microsoft, company executives were swapping e-mails suggesting Dell deserved a beating for its growing interest in Linux, according to documents filed with a state court. But Redmond representatives said Friday that the 2002 exchange, made public this week as part of an antitrust suit unfolding in Iowa state court, only tells part of the story. They said it omits evidence that Microsoft executives were simultaneously seeking legal advice on how to ensure they were responding to such competitive threats without shirking their antitrust responsibilities. The e-mail thread...

Excerpt - BOSTON, Jan 18, 2007 (AP Worldstream via COMTEX News Network) -- Hewlett-Packard Co. extended its lead over Dell Inc. in the worldwide personal-computer market in the fourth quarter, according to a report by two top technology research firms. The analyses from IDC and Gartner Inc. produced slightly different numbers but the same general results: With overall PC sales unspectacular, HP managed to outgrow the rest of the market and lead the worldwide tally of PC sales for the second quarter in a row. PC sales increased roughly 7.4 percent in the fourth quarter, according to Gartner, while IDC...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Dell (Nasdaq:DELL - news) said on Friday it received a letter from Nasdaq saying the computer maker was not in compliance with listing requirements because it was late in filing its fiscal third-quarter report. The world's No. 2 PC maker previously said it would delay filing the report due to an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission into the company's accounting and financial reporting for possible misstatements. In addition to the SEC, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the company's audit committee have raised questions about Dell's financial reporting....

Excerpt - Demand for computers during the Thanksgiving weekend appeared to be strong, with both notebook and desktop models enjoying brisk sales driven by deep discounts. Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) was a standout, with some analysts reporting long lines in its stores and strong demand, even though the Cupertino, Calif., computer maker wasn't selling systems on the cheap. Shoppers at big-box retailers lined up to get the deeply discounted computers, but once the specials were gone, consumers didn't linger or buy more expensive systems, said Richard Doherty, research director at Envisoneering, at market- research firm. He said the strategy of...

DALLAS (AP) -- Dell Inc. said Wednesday that federal regulators had begun a formal investigation into the computer giant, which had been part of an informal inquiry since August. Dell also said it was postponing the release of its third quarter earnings report -- scheduled for Thursday after markets close -- until sometime later in the month. The company said the earnings report delay was unrelated to the widening Securities and Exchange Commission probe. A company spokesman told The Associated Press that the company did not know what the SEC was specifically investigating. In a press release issued late Wednesday,...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Dell Inc. has postponed the quarterly financial report scheduled for Thursday afternoon as the Securities and Exchange Commission has stepped up its probe into the accounting practices of one of the world's biggest makers of personal computers. Dell, in a statement issued Wednesday evening, said it plans instead to release its third-quarter results by the end of the month due to "complexity" it has faced in closing its books for the quarter. "This complexity arises out of the ongoing investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the company's audit committee into certain accounting and financial...

For those attempted to purchase Dell's new E207WFP wide screen monitor beware it has a major backlight problem. My entire background is washed in backlight bleeding. leaving a very un-uniform screen. I wouldn't consider this thing a bargain even at $100! Junk in MHO.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Hewlett-Packard Co. supplanted Dell Inc. as the world leader in personal computer shipments during the third quarter, returning the bragging rights to Silicon Valley for the first time in nearly three years, according to figures released Wednesday by two influential research firms. Both Gartner Inc. and IDC pegged the overall third-quarter growth of the global PC market at just under 7 percent, but that trend was overshadowed by the industry's new pecking order. The changing of the guard occurred after HP's shipments climbed by 15 percent from a year ago while Dell's edged up by...

"You will NEVER buy a Dell again." So pronounced my boss. We bought a new server and a new desktop for the boss. I talked him into buying Dell because that is the only brand our university MSS department supports. That is because our techs can open a Dell case without voiding the warranty. Not true of many other brands. The boss's new desktop was a disaster. Despite the new dual-core pentium IV it was slower than a 4 year-old Compaq. It turns out that Dell uses reconditioned parts in their new machines and the reconditioned hard drive was defective....

Right about now, Dell has to be wondering: "Intel, was it something we said?" If Dell actually gives voice to the question, though, I expect Intel would confide, "Nah. It was something you did -- building boring computers. But it's not just you. Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo pretty much bore users to tears, too." Recognizing that the EBA ("Everybody But Apple") computer makers have gotten stuck in a decades-long rut of churning out plain beige, or occasionally grey, boxes as their primary form of desktop computing power, Intel CEO Paul Otellini announced a new contest on Tuesday. Intel will pay...

ROUND ROCK, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 11, 2006--Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL - News) announced today that it is delaying the filing of the Form 10-Q for its fiscal second quarter ended August 4, 2006. The company said it is unable to file because of questions raised in connection with the previously announced informal investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into certain accounting and financial reporting matters and the subsequently initiated independent investigation by the Audit Committee of its board of directors. The company said it plans to file the report as soon as possible. The investigations have indicated...

I just got a little pop-up on my system that lets me know when a driver is outdated. Have any of you received this and have you downloaded it: updates.visualnetworks.com - / -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, September 12, 2005 12:06 PM 1197959 ipvnminstaller.exe

The PR nightmare for Sony (NYSE: SNE) -- maker of the infamous batteries used in notebook computers recalled last week by Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) -- continues. The Japanese government on Tuesday issued a report, from Tokyo, that indicated there was at least one reported case of a fire in an Apple iBook G4 computer, using the Sony lithium-ion battery, in that country. The government is now probing the matter, raising further troubles for Apple and for Sony, the latter once perceived as one of the world's top-quality consumer electronics makers. The fire caused a burn to the user's finger. It...

I'm at my wit's end -- maybe some FReeper who is smarter than I can tell me what clue I am missing. Here is what happened: My wife's computer's hard drive crashed, so I purchased and installed a new hard drive, formatted it, and Windows XP Pro was and is working fine. The wife's computer is as follows: Dell 4600C Series P4 3.06GHz, slimline case with vertical CD drive, purchased in January 2004. Network Adapter according to original invoice is "Integrated 10/100 Ehternet" Then the problem came when I tried to get on the Internet. We have a cable broadband...

Qantas is issuing an advisory to all passengers on its flights on the safe use of Dell notebooks following the recall of 4.1 million batteries announced by the PC manufacturer last week. The airline said that although passengers would be allowed to carry their Dells either as checked or cabin baggage, they could only use them on battery power or through the aircraft power supply available in some first and business class cabins once they have first removed the batteries from the unit. Qantas said cabin crew would be advising passengers of the measures which apply to any computer affected...

Apple Computer Inc. will recall 1.8 million lithium-ion notebook computer batteries after nine devices overheated, causing minor burns to two users, U.S. safety regulators said on Thursday. The recall is the second-biggest in U.S. history involving electronics or computers. Just last week, No. 1 PC maker Dell Inc. recalled 4.1 million lithium-ion batteries. In both cases, the batteries had power cells made by Sony Corp..

SHAWNEE, Kan. -- Firefighters were called to a home in Kansas Wednesday morning after a laptop computer burst into flames. Paul Kupperman said his wife, Juli, was at their Shawnee home reading e-mail on a different computer when the Sony Vaio laptop computer caught fire. "Flames started to shoot out from all different directions," Juli Kupperman said. She put out the fire with a fire extinguisher and called him at work to tell him what happened. "(The laptop) burst into flames again while she was on the phone with me. So I dropped the phone and called 911 and started...

Qantas is issuing an advisory to all passengers on its flights on the safe use of Dell notebooks following the recall of 4.1 million batteries announced by the PC manufacturer last week. The airline said that although passengers would be allowed to carry their Dells either as checked or cabin baggage, they could only use them on battery power or through the aircraft power supply available in some first and business class cabins once they have first removed the batteries from the unit. Cabin crew will be advising passengers of the measures which apply to all Dell laptops said a...

DALLAS — Dell Inc. has quietly pulled the plug on its DJ Ditty music players, less than a year after the world's largest computer maker launched the device to compete with Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod Shuffle. The company stopped selling the Ditty on Aug. 17, Dell spokesman Venancio Figueroa said Wednesday.

Dell has apparently conceded defeat in the MP3 player market, as reports indicate that the company is no longer selling any of its MP3 players and has removed most referencs to its DJ Ditty MP3 player from the Dell website. Electronista notes that the Texas-based Dell originally entered the digital audio player market in late 2003 to capitalize on the rapidly expanding popularity of Apple's iPod; however, despite attempts to compete with Apple on features and price, Dell has consistently struggled to find significant marketshare. Earlier this year, Dell discontinued all its hard drive-based players in favor of the lower-end...

"The similarities are almost eerie. This year, readers gave us the lowdown on over 13,000 desktop PCs—enough data to rate eight of the country's leading brands. And the final tally looks an awful lot like last year's survey results," Cade Metz reports for PC Magazine on "The 19th Annual Reader Satisfaction Survey." Metz reports, "This year, you diehard PC Mag readers detailed your experiences with nearly 20,000 PCs (notebooks and desktops) and more than 6,500 printers (from mono lasers to color ink jet all-in-ones). And what you say about the leading manufacturers isn't always what we'd expect. No big...

Dell Posts 51 Percent Decline in 2Q Net Earnings, Says Regulators Investigating Accounting DALLAS (AP) -- Computer maker Dell Inc. posted a 51 percent decline in net earnings for its second quarter Thursday and said regulators were investigating its accounting. The company's shares fell in after-hours trading. The company also announced an expanded partnership to put Advanced Micro Devices Inc. computer chips into a new line of servers and desktop PCs as early as next month. Dell's profits fell to $502 million in the second quarter from $1.02 billion in the same period a year ago. This week the company...

Fueled by fire. Dell has an ad campaign showing flames allover a desktop pc. Talk about bad timing. You have to see this. Follow link to Dell site.

Excerpt - SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 14 (Reuters) - No. 1 personal computer maker Dell Inc. said on Monday that it would recall 4.1 million notebook computer batteries with cells made by Sony Corp. Dell said that it issued the recall because the lithium ion batteries could overheat and, in rare cases, produce smoke and catch fire, a Dell spokesman said. ~ snip ~

The man who founded the world's largest PC company thinks the best is still to come after a quarter-century of the IBM PC. Twenty-five years have passed since IBM launched its version of the personal computer. Apple Computer may have captured the attention of early computer hobbyists with its first products, but IBM's PC made the business world sit up and realize that personal computers could be much more than toys. Michael Dell started off using PCs to create homework shortcuts, the way many young people at the time discovered the new devices. Few people, including Dell's parents, realized exactly...