Michael Dell spent an hour and a half on the phone yesterday with Wall Street analysts outlining his plan to put Dell back on track. It was Dell’s first strategy call since it resolved the accounting problems that forced it to run on radio silence for more than a year, so analysts jumped at the chance to re-connect.

Dell’s new strategy is to "simplify IT" while focusing on on five key areas: Consumers, emerging markets, notebooks, big companies, and small and medium businesses.

Dell went on to outline specific initiatives in each of these broad areas - a new emphasis on design in notebooks; a continued focus on finding new ways to let consumers "see, touch and feel" Dell computers before buying them; and a focus on new devices specifically designed for small businesses, for example.

While Mr Dell was keen to outline his plans for the company, he avoided getting into specifics of how those plans are unfolding thus far. For example, when asked about the progress of Dell’s retail push - a fair question given the fact that the introduction of Dell computers into Wal-Mart and other retail stores seems to have done little to revive the company’s flagging US consumer sales - Mr Dell dodged the question by reciting a list of previously announced retail partnerships.

After more than two years of struggles, investors will no doubt be glad to hear that Dell has begun to identify possible solutions to some of the problems facing its business model. Still, they could be forgiven for hoping for a clearer picture of the progress that has been made to date.

Del

Popularity: 17% [?]

Share This

HDNet, owned by Dallas’s own Mark Cuban, will be the exclusive, HD-only broadcaster of the Democratic presidential debate in Iowa tomorrow (Saturday) starting at 6:30 pm central time.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Share This

The New York Times reports that the Rite Aid chain of drug stores is selling paternity tests at some shops in California, Oregon and Washington.

The test, sold under the brand name Identigene, has a suggested list price of $29.99, though a reporter purchased one at a Rite Aid in Santa Monica, Calif., for $19.99. There is an additional laboratory fee of $119 to have the samples analyzed….

The box contains three sets of cotton swabs to collect cheek samples from the child, the alleged father and the mother. (The mother is optional but helps strengthen the results, the company says.) The swabs are put into separate packets and mailed to Sorenson’s laboratory in Salt Lake City. Results are provided by mail, fax or on a password-protected Web site within five days of the laboratory receiving the samples.

DNA is moving from the research lab to the real world at an amazing rate. This story comes just a week after 23andMe began offering its own DNA-based service, one that uses saliva to analyze a customer’s genes and gage his or her risk of getting various diseases.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Share This

I’ve spent my week in a server room building this system of Apple XServes and a 10.5 terrabyte XServe RAID to act as an encoding farm for the videos you seen on Belo websites.
Going forward you’ll notice the videos are going to play with Flash instead of Windows Media Player.
This should make for a nicer user experience. The videos should look better.
Our photographers will drop their video onto the farm and it will convert their raw video to Flash very quickly.
You may be asked to install or update your Flash player, but it’s worth it.

I like all the blinky lights…and the rack puts out enough heat to make beef jerky.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Share This

According to market research firm Informa, the number of cellphone subscriptions worldwide is now equal to half of the world’s total population.

That does not mean that half the people in the world have a mobile phone, since some people own more than one, and in fact, Informa says there are 59 countries where cellphone penetration is over 100 percent.

Not bad for a technology first activated in 1981 in Saudi Arabia, Sweden and Norway.

Via Slashdot.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Share This

Amazon.com has started sending out weekly updates on the best-selling electronics items on its site, as well as a list of the gadgets whose sales rankings have increased the most over the last 24 hours.

This week’s list is below, but a word of caution: The prices below are the official prices Amazon sent me, but when I clicked on the links, some of the prices had changed. Amazon is probably adjusting prices constantly right now for the holiday season, so just remember that your mileage may vary.

Top Sellers as of November 28, 2007

1. Kindle: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device $399.00

2. Garmin nüvi 660 Pocket Vehicle GPS Navigator - North America $493.16

3. Apple 4 GB iPod nano AAC/MP3 Player Silver (3rd Generation) $148.76

4. Canon PowerShot A570IS 7.1MP Digital Camera $157.94

5. Apple 8 GB iPod nano AAC/MP3 Player Black (3rd Generation) $189.99

*******************

Top Movers & Shakers as of November 28, 2007

1. Creative Live! Cam with Voice $14.99 - Sales Rank in Electronics: 121 (was 1,277)

2. Canon Pixma MP960 Photo All-In-One Inkjet Printer $274.99 - Sales Rank in Electronics: 184 (was 1,474)

3. Zune 80 GB Digital Media Player Black (2nd Generation) $248.99 - Sales Rank in Electronics: 52 (was 137)

4. Logitech V220 Cordless Optical Mouse $19.99 - Sales Rank in Electronics: 375 (was 912)

5. Samsung LNT4661F 46″ 1080p LCD HDTV $1,644.99 - Sales Rank in Electronics: 78 (was 182)

Popularity: 17% [?]

Share This

If your holiday bonus is looking exceptionally generous this year, you might want to take a gander at the proposed “Ultimate HD Package” on Amazon.com right now.

It’s a decent roundup, but I think diligent shoppers should be able to chop about 1,000 bucks off the total $11,000 price tag.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Share This

As I mentioned yesterday, the National Association of Broadcasters is in Dallas for the next few days hosting public events designed to explain the upcoming digital broadcast transition.

I also mentioned the association’s DTV Trekker, a 20-foot television traveling with the show.

Here’s a picture of the contraption.

Sadly, I learned today that the device is not an actual, functioning TV, but merely a truck dressed up to look like a really big TV. I was all set to sneak out to one of these shindigs with my Xbox 360 to get in a little quality time with Call of Duty 4.

Still, it’s useful landmark to look for if you’re heading out to one of these events.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Share This

Popularity: 17% [?]

Share This

The Nintendo Wii
continued its dominance of next-generation console sales in the first week of
the US holiday shopping season.

Nintendo says it
sold 350,000 of the $250 Wiis in the Thanksgiving week beginning November 18 –
its biggest seven-day sales figure since that of the week it launched a year
ago.

Microsoft has just reported sales of 310,000 Xbox 360s over the same period. It
claimed it outsold Sony’s PlayStation 3 by two to one, citing estimates from
top retailers.

Sony must have hoped
for better after introducing a cut-price 40-gigabyte version of the console at
$399.

It avoided issuing
sales figures, but said PS3 sales in the week were up 245 per cent on the same
period a year ago, when Sony suffered supply problems and a slow start to its
launch.

Sony is currently
running new PS3 commercials in its largest marketing effort for the console to
date.

What they obviously don’t say is that the Wii is
cheaper, the Xbox has a better games line-up and consumers aren’t clear about
the benefits of a cheap Blu-ray player being in the PS3, when the standards war
with HD-DVD has yet to be resolved.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Share This