Wal-Mart to sell Dell computers
Dell’s profits and sales miss analyst’s targets and the computer firm warns earnings will remain under pressure.
Hitachi’s Monster Laptop Drive
I cringe with embarrassment at my weedy 40GB notebook drive which, more than year ago, was quite average but these days is the type of thing to make people snigger.
Hitachi’s solution is to break a few records and release a massive 200GB, 7200rpm notebook drive, claiming it to be the biggest and fastest on the block. That’s some notebook drive – in fact, it’s also about 120GB bigger than the HDD in my three year old PC. The Travelstar 7K200 is twice the size of its predecessor and 22% faster, according to Hitachi.
Dell and Alienware are the first vendors to sign up for this beast and, get this, with the XPS M2010 and Aurora m9700 notebooks, they’ll even fit two 7K200 drives inside each to provide a whopping 400GB of internal, portable storage.
Users can also plump for the optional “Bulk Data Encryption†feature from Hitachi, which is a hard-drive level security mechanism that promises better security than software-based alternatives.
A retail version of the drive will arrive this summer for about $249 in the US, so about £250 here, then.-Martin Lynch
Steve Jobs Turns 50p Into £324m
Now that’s my kind of maths. Steve Jobs might have only paid himself a salary of $1 in 2006 but it’s still enough to make him the best paid CEO in the US. How so?
According to the latest survey of best paid CEOs, Steve Job’s topped Forbes list by earning a cool $647m (£324m) last year, thanks to ‘vested restricted stock’ [stock options and other benefits]. That’s what I need, a behind-the-scenes, covert salary.
Michael Dell, who recently decided to retake the helm at his troubled PC maker, only managed a miserable £72m. But, are these companies getting value for their money, the most bang for their buck? Apparently not.
Forbes ranked Jobs in 36th place in its pay/performance ranking, which means shareholders are not getting the best payback from their charasmatic front man. Will the iPhone worsen, or improve, that rating?-Martin Lynch
[Forbes]
Dell joins Microsoft, Novell in Linux pact
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. said on
Monday Dell Inc. had joined a business collaboration
it had with Novell Inc. to allow open-source Linux
software to work with Windows.
Dell joins Microsoft and Novell in Linux pact
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. said on Monday Dell
Inc. had joined a business collaboration it had with Novell
Inc. to allow open-source Linux software to work with Windows.
Dell to use Ubuntu on Linux PCs
Computer maker Dell selects Ubuntu as operating system for its Linux-range of computers.
Users force Dell to resurrect XP
Customers have forced PC maker Dell to reverse a policy to stop installing Windows XP on new machines.
Dell gives the go-ahead for Linux
PC maker Dell announces it will sell computers and laptops with the operating system Linux preinstalled.
The Worst PCs Ever
Lists always make for good reading, if for no other reasons than you can feel good about your own technology and you can argue with people about what should have made it in.
This is PC World’s list of the Top 10 worst PCs of all time and is sure to spark the odd debate, not to mention furious emails from certain vendors. The winner of this worst series was Packard Bell, not just for a particular model, but for desktop PCs made between 1994-96, which is rather damning. If bottom-feeder could be applied to a brand, this one ruled the sea-bed in reliability surveys. The full list looks like this:
* 10. Dell Dimension 4600 (2003)
* 9. New Internet Computer (2000)
* 8. eMachines eTower 366c (1999)
* 7. Commodore VIC 20 (1981)
* 6. Texas Instruments TI-99/4 (1979)
* 5. IBM PS/1 (1990-1994)
* 4. Apple III (1980-1984)
* 3. Coleco Adam (1983)
* 2. Mattel Barbie PC (1999-2000)
* 1. Packard Bell PCs (1986-1996)
Like all lists, it’s probably missing a few and I’m sure there are some of you on this side of the globe that would like to nominate a few desktop disasters of your own. Be my guest.-Martin Lynch
Dell launches low-cost PC in China
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Dell Inc., the world’s second-largest
personal computer maker, unveiled a low-cost PC on Wednesday
for China, its fastest-growing market.