Dell To Offer GPS Option For Netbooks

Dell is going to start offering a GPS and Wi-Fi card called the Wireless 700, for about $70, with the purchase of it's Dell Mini 10 Netbook. The card will make the Netbook a personal navigation device the likes of TomTom or Garmin. “Smartphones already have GPS capabilities,” says Alan Sicher, senior wireless product manager at Dell. “We are now bringning it to netbooks so the devices know where you are and can help you where you want to go.” The move will make the little laptops location aware devices and will compete with gps enabled cellphones for consumer dollars. Check out Wired for more details.

Dell Finding Sales Via Twitter

Dell seams to have found the right formula for making money via Twitter, attributing $3 million in sales to posts on the social networking site. According to PCWorld, "Dell Outlet uses Twitter to promote clearance sales, coupons, and other discount-related fodder... It also may provide a much-needed business model for Twitter by giving the social networking site a valid reason to charge for corporate accounts." Of course $3 million is not a huge sum where Dell is concerned but in these trying economic times it's nothing to sneeze at either. With some simple math we can deduce that @DellOutlet, which has some 600,000 followers, can place a value of $5 on each follower. Interesting...

Wal-Mart Throughs Hat Into The Digital Health Record Ring

Wal-Mart has made its intentions known regarding digital health records announcing that it will be partnering its Sam’s Club division with Dell for hardware and eClinicalWorks, for software, to offer physicians in small offices an affordable solution. “We’re a high-volume, low-cost company,” said Marcus Osborne, senior director for health care business development at Wal-Mart. “And I would argue that mentality is sorely lacking in the health care industry.” According to the New York Times "Dell will be responsible for installation of the computers, while eClinicalWorks will handle software installation, training and maintenance. Wal-Mart is using its buying power for discounts on both the hardware and software."

Dell Cashing In On Twitter Craze

According to Venture Beat Dell has used Twitter posts (tweets) to ring up $1 million in sales over the past 18 months. "Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) says Twitter has produced $1 million in revenue over the past year and a half through sale alerts. People who sign up to follow Dell on Twitter receive messages when discounted products are available the company’s Home Outlet Store. They can click over to purchase the product or forward the information to others." Interestingly Twitter is under much scrutiny because the company has yet to reveal it's business model leaving many to wonder how the service will be monetized? Looks like Dell has been able to do something with the service that the service has yet to do, make sales. Regardless, Twitter is expected to announce it's plan for how to monetize the service in 2009.

Dell Entering Netbook Market

A BBC article citing Gizmodo as a source is reporting that Dell is about to enter the Netbook market, a market that is being driven in larger part by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program, the success of the Asus Eee PC and the availability of low-cost and low power consumption chips designed just for such devices. "I've not seen energy like this from our customers in a long, long time," said Intel chief executive Paul Otellini to The Associated Press.

All of the usual suspects seem to be lining up to enter the market for netbooks and Dell is no exception, it would appear. Microsoft recently announced it would be selling XP for sub-notebooks at a price of just $32, keeping the OS alive to stave off competition from linux. HP and Acer are both coming out with low power machines and Asus believes it will sell almost two million linux powered Eee PCs in the first half of this year. While I've seen the OLPC laptop, and it's cute, I'm not apt to purchase one for my own use. The Eee PC, and potentially others like it, are a little more appealing for certain applications however... such as blogging on the go!

Dell, HP And Lenovo Keeping XP Alive?

Dell, HP and Lenovo are reportedly keeping XP alive by exploiting loopholes in Vista licensing agreements. Under the terms of a "downgrade license" for the Business and Ultimate versions of Windows Vista, PC manufacturers are keeping XP flowing out the door. According to the BBC "... PC is logged as a Vista sale and, in effect, is being sold with an unused option to upgrade to the newer operating system". It will be interesting to see if this constitutes enough interest in XP to keep the OS alive. HP apparently is using the "downgrade" option to keep selling XP with some models until 30 July 2009 which exceeds Microsoft's deadline on the product by a year. The sales are however being considered Vista sales and have contributed to a reported 140 million licenses of that OS being sold to date. Your move Mr. Ballmer...

Dell Blu-ray Laptop For Under $1000

Dell has announced the inclusion of a Blu-ray disc player in it's Inspiron^TM 1525 laptops, starting at $879. According to the press release "The Blu-ray player disc drive is fully backwards compatible, and will play as well as burn traditional DVDs and CDs. Consumers can also chose a Blu-ray burner drive, which is great for backing up and storing important files like digital photos, videos, financial records, etc. A Blu-ray disc will hold up to 50 GB of data, vs. 8.5 GB available on the typical DVD disc." The laptop comes with a 15.4-inch high definition wide aspect display at 720p resolution but also includes an HDMI port allowing you to connect to high a resolution display or HDTV. Oh and did I mention you can get it in an array of colors including the ever popular Sunshine Yellow!

Dell Cuts Hit Edmonton Call Centre

Hardware giant Dell, in the middle of consolidating its global operations and cutting its costs by downsizing up to 10% of it's workforce, has announced the closure of it's Edmonton call centre sending 900 employees to the unemployment lines. Dell moved to the city in 2005 with major tax concessions from city hall, "a 20-year agreement to waive property taxes on the company's southside call centre", worth a reported $1.1 million over the first 5 years of the deal. Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel said "Their turnover was so high they couldn't keep people trained well enough to keep the level of service up,". Kenn Bur, director of communications for Economic Development Edmonton says "There a number of scenarios and we have referred that to our legal counsel," in response to questions about recuperating money due to Dell's breach of the agreement.
CBC story here.

Staples to sell Dell products online and in store

Customers at 1400 Staples stores and at Staples.com will soon be able to purchase Dell laptops, desktops, printers and more as the two companies announced the establishment of a retail agreement in a press release today. The release states " 1721 and 1521 notebooks, The initial products offered at Staples will include InspironInspiron 530 desktops, Dell 948 and 926 all-in-one inkjet printers, Dell 1320c laser printer, Dell SE198WFP 19-inch widescreen flat panel LCD monitor, and the Dell E228WFP 22-inch widescreen flat panel LCD monitor. Additionally, Staples will offer ink and toner for most Dell printers." Indications are that Dell products will be in store for the holiday buying season.

Sounds like a win - win for both companies! No word about Staples selling Dell products in Canada.

Dell adding a splash of colour

At an event in New York today, Dell announced the launch of a new line of Inspiron laptops available in 8 new colours: flamingo pink, sunshine yellow, alpine white, ruby red, jet black, midnight blue, and espresso. The company also announced it's first PC to use flash memory rather than a hard-disk drive, a laptop as well, the machine comes with 32 gigabytes of data storage. In addition Dell announced that the Dimension brand will be discontinued in favour of the Inspiron name, both laptops and desktops will now be branded as Inspiron. These moves are meant to pull Dell back on top after slipping below HP as worldwide leader in PC sales.