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(Source: Engadget)

When X-bit labs recently reported that Nvidia would be working with WidowPC to release its Sting 919 notebook – a SLI-based dual-GeForce Go 7800-equipped desktop replacement, they also reminded us about the Dell Renegade XPS 600. The Dell-Nvidia powerhouse will come equipped with four graphics cards – a first for consumer-oriented personal computers (i.e. Dell-oriented)

As Engadget reported last month, the Dell Renegade XPS 600 is likely to come equipped with four of NVIDIA’s 512MB GeForce 7800 SLI graphics cards, an Intel Extreme Edition processor – factory overclocked to 4.26GHz, and 650GB of HDD space (1x 150GB 10,000 RPM, 2x 250GB 7,200 RPM).

Monstrous as it is, we’re probably still going to be seeing air-based cooling – which I’m not going to like personally. If (if) I were to ever purchase this uber-expensive piece of equipment, the first thing I’d do would be to watercool the system and the four graphics cards.

Dell has set a Spring 2006 US shipping date on this reportedly limited-edition Dell Renegade XPS 600.

More information and reviews on the Dell XPS Renegade 600 here.

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According to a report from MacWorld, Apple has passed Dell as top vendor for the Western European education market. This comes in the wake of Dell’s failure to wrench a $16 million contract to supply laptops to Henrico County (US) middle school students and teachers from Apple.

Apple’s 2005 4Q market share stands at 15.2 percent – 0.5 percent higher than Dell’s 14.7 percent. However, Dell remains as top vendor for Germany’s education market, surpassing Apple’s 15.6 percent market share.

In any case, it seems that the gap between Apple and Dell in West Europe’s education market is still relatively narrow, but could this be a sign of things to come?

[News via TMCnet]

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The education sector has always been a desirable market for brand-name PC makers. Why? High volume, sufficiently long contracts and what I call the all-important “indoctrination” factor – i.e. the opportunity for students to be “indoctrinated” into the use of the company’s PCs. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realise that if students get used to Apple iBooks, they have a higher tendency of staying with iBooks as adults.

And recently, Apple jumped one step ahead of (or rather, retained its lead over) Dell in the education sector when it was “…awarded the contract to continue supplying laptops to Middle school students and teachers (grades 6-8) in Henrico County (some 12,675 units), beating Dell and other PC makers.” It’s a four-year contract too, worth nearly $16 million.

Apparently, one of the reasons why Dell lost the deal was that it’s offer last year expired in Nov. 2005. Dell’s proposal was more than $100 per unit lower than Apple’s successful offer ($1,246 vs. $1,111). As a result, Mac priests enthusiasts are crawling all over the deal – saying that “…Henrico County School Board appears to have learned their lesson well…” – a reference to the School Board’s decision to use Dell (over Apple) for their high school students last year.

[News via MacDailyNews]

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I just read an intriguing article over at the Financial Times on how a company’s website can reflect its focus, i.e. the marketing vs. corporate “conflict” (or rather, customer-centric vs. corporate-centric). The writer goes so far to say that this “conflict” can be pretty literal – where there could actually be internal politics between the marketing and corporate establishments in a particular company underlying the web “conflict” that we customers can see.

Dell’s official website was evaluated as a customer-centric website, where marketing takes primary focus – which I think should be expected given Dell’s proven direct sales model. This evaluation was based on the lack of exposure of basic corporate information on Dell.com, i.e. “Dell’s About us link is tucked away next to ‘Conditions of Sale and Site Terms’ at the bottom of the page.” According to the writer, this means that Dell is one of those “…organisations where the corporate functions are squeezed out by their marketing colleagues.”

But while the writer’s analysis is surely a solid one, I believe that this kind of analysis can only be done on the websites of large organisations. Anywhere else and it would be more likely to be a lack of proper funding, design, manpower, vision, etc.

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When Matt Krantz over at USAToday.com rated Dell’s stock as little more than a gamble a month back, many already knew what CNNMoney is spotlighting now: That Dell would be facing most challenging growth prospects.

This assertion stems all the way from Hewlett-Packard (HP)’s recent resurgence in PCs, servers and even printers to Dell’s dependence on a slowing PC market. Dell’s lack of success in breaking into the consumer products market (e.g. Dell’s almost complete pull-out from the MP3 player market dominated by Apple) is probably another contributing factor. And let’s not forget the other brand-names vying for a piece of Dell’s PC market share (Read: Acer).

But with Dell CEO Kevin Rollins reportedly attempting to turn things around – with calls for “…improving customer service and redesigning the sales and support areas on Dell’s Web site…” as well as attempts to “…expand its (Dell’s) international presence…”, analysts seem to be still mixed on the attractiveness of Dell’s stock. However, it is clear that Dell is no longer the no-brainer blue-chip stock that any institutional investor would love to have in its portfolio.

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(Source: PC Watch)

A while back, PCWorld readers emailed in their favourite notebooks (with explanations too), and now, the results are out. The notebooks nominated were the oh-so-expected Apple iBook, the classy IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T43, Toshiba notebooks and the ultraportable Dell Inspiron 700m.

Of the Dell Inspiron 700m, PCWorld reader, John Hawkinson says:

“The 700m is compact and light, yet it has many features of a desktop replacement,” he writes. “For example, it has great screen quality, good battery life, a built-in DVD burner, and a fast-enough processor.” The only drawback, John writes, is the “scaled-down keyboard” that could make typing for “large-fingered” people difficult.

PCWorld also notes that the newer Dell Inspiron 710m recently earned a number five slot in their Top 5 Ultraportable Laptops chart.

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Getting out of failed ventures is an acceptable move which no company can avoid, even if it is the mighty Dell. So, when Dell announced that it would be scrapping its failed Digital Jukebox line of hard-drive MP3 players recently, it really was not that surprising. As a reason for the move, Dell stated that it “…saw an opportunity to streamline and consolidate our (Dell’s) portfolio.”

But a deeper analysis of Dell’s withdrawal wasn’t provided, so it’s nice to have one from Guardian Unlimited. Guardian Unlimited does a short review (or rather, critique) of Dell’s entrance and pull-out from the hard-drive MP3 player market – underlining the iPod’s superiority in today’s United States MP3 market.

As a conclusion, Guardian Unlimited questions the viability of Dell’s online music store service. At least, that’s what I can extract from this: “No word yet on whether the Dell online music store, launched at the same time as the Dell DJ, will survive, or for how long.”

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There’s a pretty unique post over at Blogcritics.org on how the PC wars could pan out in the near future. It talks about how a “serious rivalry” could be forming between Dell and Apple in the wake of Apple’s recent achievement at surpassing Dell’s market capitalization, and of course, Apple’s foray into the Dell-dominated Windows-Intel notebook market. This “rivalry” is compounded further by Dell’s inability to produce and market a strong media center PC to compete with Apple’s various consumer product successes (e.g. iPod, iTunes, Mac Mini).

Of course, Apple is not the only enemy of Dell in this fake scenario. Intel is another. Why? Because Intel provided the means for Apple to venture into Dell’s and Microsoft’s sacred turf.

And the last act in this fake, yet somewhat possible scenario: “…Microsoft, Dell and IBM teaming up against Apple, and Intel in a fake future battle royale.”

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(Source: TrustedReviews)

Yesterday, being a member of File Front, I received an email regarding a chance to win a free Dell XPS 600 from Computer Gaming World. Now, we all know the Dell XPS 600 is a top-of-the-line gaming desktop – though limited by its Intel-only specifications – as it was reviewed by TrustedReviews earlier. So, winning a free XPS 600 would be um… beyond great.

But of course, nothing is free – including the chance to win this Dell XPS 600, fully equipped with a Intel Pentium D processor, a Nvidia GeForce 6800 3D graphics card, 8GB DDR2 RAM and a 19″ widescreen display. The price: Subscribing to Computer Gaming World.

So, if you happen to be interested in subscribing to Computer Gaming World in the first place, then subscribing now wouldn’t be too bad. The competition entry cum subscription form can be found here.

More information and reviews on the Dell XPS 600 here.

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(Source: PC Watch)

Dell becomes one of the first brand-name vendors to release Viiv-empowered desktops in the Middle East with the introduction of the Dell Dimension 9150 and Dimension 5150C.

Both PCs utilise dual-core Intel® Pentium® D processors (though the 5150C can be customized to equip an older Pentium® 4 HT processor), Dell’s standard DataBurst Cache™-enabled hard drives (though as usual, customization allows you to bring this to a ~1TB RAID config), and Windows Media Centre 2005 – which according to ITP.net, has yet to be launched in the Middle East.

On the graphics side, the higher-end Dimension 9150 provides you with the option of a 256MB PCI Express Graphics NVIDIA® GeForceTM 7800 GTX, while the lower-end 5150C leaves you with a maximum of a 128MB ATI® RadeonTM X600 SE.

More information on the Dell Dimension 5150C and Dell Dimension 9150 is available here and here, respectively.

[News via ITP.net]

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