Dell reports third-quarter results after the market closes Thursday. While Hewlett-Packard had better-than-expected results, Dell could just as easily report numbers worse than analysts project, currently per-share profit of 31 cents, says Wall Street Journal. Research from Gartner, an information-technology research firm, shows that Dell is losing market share globally. (more…)

PC shipments in Western Europe totalled 17.2 million units in the third quarter of 2008, an increase of 24.3 per cent from the same period in 2007. Nearly all countries across the region posting strong increases as mini-notebooks boosted overall growth.  As a result, Acer moved to the top position in Western Europe, ahead of HP for the first time ever.  Despite the general economic turmoil, demand in the consumer PC market was strong in the third quarter of 2008. However, the professional market felt the impact as the desk-based market declined 3 per cent and the overall professional market increased just 5 per cent. (more…)

Despite challenging economic conditions, worldwide PC shipments in the first quarter of 2008 rose in accordance with normal seasonal patterns, increasing by a double-digit percentage compared to the same period in 2007, according to iSuppli Corp. Global PC unit shipments rose to 69.9 million units in the first quarter, up 12.1 percent from 62.4 million in the first quarter of 2007. Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Acer Inc. retained the top-three rankings with no change from the previous quarter. (more…)

Dell promises:
- Crysis at full 1920×1200 resolution and 30+ FPS with Quad Graphics
- Enhanced optional patent-pending H2C cooling solution keeps gamers in the red zone, CPUs out
- Choice of Painted Anodized Aluminum H2C chassis or Silver Brushed Aluminum air-cooled chassis with optional X-View clear panel for under-the-hood ogling (more…)

All five notebook PCs in the CNET Asia “Top 5 Blu-ray notebooks” article feature Nvidia Geforce GPUs, including the Dell XPS m1730, winner of CNET’s Editor’s Choice and Reader’s Choice awards. Now that Blu-ray has emerged as the standard high-definition movie disc format, more PC makers are adding Blu-ray to their notebook PCs and NVIDIA is providing the graphics horsepower under the hood. (more…)

The playing field is virtual, but the rivalries are real in Dell’s new College Gaming League. Established exclusively for college students, the CGL provides a community and framework for avid PC and console gamers to connect and compete. League membership is free and open to all college students . (more…)

Dell is partnering with Egenera to deliver a fully integrated solution for employing dynamic data center environments. Together, the two companies intend to combine Dell’s PowerEdge  server line, a full suite of Dell’s Infrastructure Consulting Services and Egenera’s PAN Manager infrastructure virtualization software. The solution is designed to enable customers to simplify operations by creating and managing a single resource pool for both physical and virtualized servers. (more…)

An anonymous reader writes “Speculation is mounting that Google is plotting the launch of a mobile phone in partnership with computer giant Dell. Senior industry sources claim the two companies will reveal their plans at next month’s 3GSM telecoms conference in Barcelona, although Google insiders deny an announcement is due in the near future.”

Dell and Microsoft re teaming up to release a Product Red computer, donating up to $80 for every one sold to fund AIDS-fighting drugs in Africa. Dell will start selling two (Red) laptops and one desktop running Microsoft Windows Vista on Friday. The two companies will donate $50 for a laptop and $80 for a desktop to the Global Fund, which finances health programs in Africa.

IDC says worldwide PC shipments grew by 15.5% in the fourth quarter of 2007 (4Q07), EMEA tops growth with 20% increase and other markets also performed well too - United States 8.8% , also stong results in Japan and Latin America. On an annual basis, total shipments reached 269.0 million units in 2007 with growth of 14.3%. HP took the top spot with volume of over 50.5 million, with Dell in second with volume of 40.0 million. Acer moved into third with volume of 21.2 million excluding Gateway’s business for the first three quarters and 24.6 million including Gateway, followed by Lenovo with 20.2 million. (more…)