Dell to sell through local channel

PC-maker Dell, which made an art-form of selling direct to end-users – bypassing traditional reseller channels – will soon start selling some desktops and notebooks through retail outlets in Asia.

The radical shift began in the US, where the company last month started selling some low-end machines through the giant WalMart chain.

Now the company says it has plans to extend the plan to the Asia-Pacific markets.

Dell’s Singapore-based Asia-Pacific chief Paul-Henri Ferrand told a regional media briefing that the company was in talks with retail chains and some specialist IT outlets, but gave no details.

He said the diversity of the markets through the region meant the indirect channel strategy would come sooner in some countries, and much later in others.

The company would use different retail chains in different countries as part of the plan, Mr Ferrand said.

“What we want to make sure is that we customise our approach by country and target (market),” he said.

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Axe swings for 8,000 at troubled Dell

DELL Computer will lay off ten per cent of its global workforce – or about 8,000 staff – as part of an ongoing restructure aimed at getting the troubled PC giant back on track.

The company announced the retrenchment plan as part of its quarterly earnings reporting process. The company said it had earned US$759 million (A$916.3 million) in after tax profit for the three months to the end of May, compared to US$762 million in the year ago quarter.

Sales were up nearly 1 per cent to US$14.6 billion, beating most analysts’ expectations. Dell’s US34 cent per share return outstripped the average analyst forecast of US26 cents.

The company said the lay-off would put pressure on operating margins over the next two quarters as restructure costs collided with the traditionally slower Dell quarters.

Dell founder and chief executive Michael Dell said the layoffs were unfortunate but the company would ultimately benefit.

“While reductions in headcount are always difficult for a company, we know these actions are critical to our ability to deliver unprecedented value to our customers now and in the future,” Mr Dell said.

It is not clear how many staff in the company’s Asia-Pacific operation – and Australia – will be affected by the latest round of lay-offs.

The Dell financial results are considered preliminary and were issued as a press release rather than a financial statement, as the company has not yet completed its lengthy investigation with auditors of accounting irregularities from the past.

The company’s Audit Committee chairman Thomas Luce said the investigation had taken longer than expected but that the company had been in regular contact with the US financial regulator over the matter.

“Although this process has taken us longer than we would have liked, it is important to commit the time and resources required to ensure a thorough and comprehensive review and resolution of all identified issues and the implementation of appropriate remedial measures,” Mr Luce said in a statement.

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Dell lets users keep buying Windows XP

PC maker Dell Computer is to let customers in the US decide between Microsoft’s pre-loaded Windows Vista and its predecessor Windows XP when they purchase new machines.

When Vista was launched in January, Dell started shipping all home PCs with the new operating system. But customer demand for the older operating system has changed the company’s mind.

Dell digital media manager Lionel Menchaca said the idea to continue shipping XP had been raised on its IdeaStorm customer website.

The company had previously said it would continue offering XP to small business customers, and when home users’ responded with demand for the older operating system, Dell changed its plans, Mr Menchaca said on the official Dell blog.

But so far the new plan only applies to US customers. Mr Menchaca said the company had yet to decide whether to extend the plan to overseas markets.

The decision to allow shipment of XP-based machines comes just weeks after Dell announced plans to ship systems pre-loaded with the open source Linux operating system.

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Dell to ship pre-installed Linux

PC-maker Dell has promised to start selling notebooks and desktops preloaded with Linux and other open source software products after being inundated with customer requests for the platforms.

Dell announced yesterday that more than 100,000 people had responded in the past two weeks to an online survey about pre-loaded Linux.

“Dell has heard you and we will expand our Linux support beyond our existing servers and Precision workstation line,” the company announced through a corporate blog yesterday.

“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 … and the Linux distribution(s) that will be available.”

“The countdown begins today.”

The decision has enormous implications for the PC software industry. Other PC-makers would be expected to follow Dell down the Linux path, and HP is known to already be considering such a plan.

The company issued the survey as part of its IdeaStorm customer consultation process that began in February. Dell launched IdeaStorm to seek direct input – ideas – from its customers.

Overwhelmingly, the biggest IdeaStorm talking point was open source software. Dell then posted the online survey to descover more precisely the open source preferences of its customers.

In announcing the Linux plan, Dell also released some of the broad findings of its survey, including that 70 per cent of its respondents said they would use a Dell system with Linux for both home and office use.

Survey respondents said they wanted to be able to choose Linux on a variety of different Dell notebook and desktop products. They also said existing, community-based support forums would meet their technical support needs for a tested and validated Linux OS.

They also said that improved hardware support for Linux is just as important as which Linux distributions are offered.

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Pre-installed penguin mooted for Dell, HP

GLOBAL PC market leaders Dell and HP are considering offering boxes pre-loaded with Linux and other open source software in the face of growing customer demand for the service.

Both companies have been watched the demand grow for years, but have chosen to turn a blind eye.

The complications of licensing arrangement with their powerful software partner – Microsoft – has made any decision to pre-load Linux more complex than it might appear to the casual observer.

But the demands have become more difficult to ignore, particularly for Dell, which has launched a customer-facing web site called Ideastorm that aimed to elicit ideas from its user base.

In less than three weeks, Ideastorm has attracted 110,000 comments from people talking about pre-installed open source Linux – by far the most talked about idea talked about by customers.

And the next most discussed topic was a suggestion – with 72,000 comments – that Dell pre-install OpenOffice, either alongside Microsoft Office or MS Works, or instead of them.

Dell hasn’t officially commented on the response it has received from the Ideastorm, although a spokesman was quoted on US media sites saying the Linux buzz was “being taken into account” and that users should stay tuned.

Hewlett-Packard is also said to be considering offering pre-installed Linux as a product option – but says it is responding more to demand from corporate customers.

CRN magazine in the US quotes HP worldwide director of open source and Linux marketing Doug Small saying a series of massive deals for Linux desktops were “indicators of critical mass … so we are looking at it very hard.”

The company does not sell PCs or notebooks pre-loaded with Linux, but has several systems that are certified for both SUSE and Red Hat. It will pre-load Linux as part of custom orders, usually for large enterprise roll-outs.

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