News Bits: Dell Loses Consumer Notebook Sales, San Fran Cancels Wi-Fi, Data on an Atom

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Delays cause Dell’s consumer laptop sales to drop by 20%

Dell sold 887,000 notebooks to consumers during the second quarter. Last year at the same time, Dell sold 1.1 million more notebooks, about 20% more. Rival HP sold 2.4 million notebooks in Q2,  Apple also sold more notebooks than Dell at 1.1 million. Dell’s Direct2Dell.com site suffered thousands of complaints from many impatient customers complaining about long delays.

Customer Bryant J posted &quot;I have several of these Inspirons that I've ordered for personal stuff, and it's approaching 60 days since the order date. I'm the IT director for a large account with you guys, and this is the last straw. You've lost me as a customer.&quot; Dell blames some of the problems on short supply for certain LCD panels. The company appears to be selling notebooks faster than their suppliers are capable of building the computers.

Read More (ComputerWorld.com)

Thanks to Jason for submitting this story

Quanta expects 15% sequential growth in notebook shipments

Quanta Computer expects a 15 percent sequential increase in notebook shipments, up from the 7.4 million the company shipped in Q2. The company expects its notebook shipments to grow an additional 20 percent in 2008.

Read More (DigiTimes.com)

 

Retail notebook sales increase 24% for 2007 over 2006, but slower growth seen

The back-to-school notebook PC sales have begun to slow down according to The NPD Group. For the first five weeks of the back-to-school season (July 15 - August 18), notebook sales were up 24 percent in units/11 percent in dollars, although the average selling price was down 10 percent. The same time period in 2006 saw a 48 percent increase in units/15 percent in dollars, with the average selling price down 22 percent.

Vice president of industry analysis for The NPD Group said in a statement that “Notebook sales have exhibited strong growth the past few years, but you can only keep that 50 percent plus growth going for so long.&quot;

Price is another factor - average selling prices are not going down as fast as they used to go in recent years, so the deals are not as attractive.

Other reasons for the slower back-to-school season include less promotional activity for both notebooks and desktops, as well as fewer computers being on the shelves in stores.

Read More (BusinessWire.com)

San Francisco city Wi-Fi plans halted

The free citywide Wi-Fi idea that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom presented two years ago has not gone far. The plans for the project have been halted by city politics and business challenges. Earthlink was supposed to build the network but backed out this week. The Internet service provider is currently being restructured after disappointing business results. Google, who was supposed to provide the free service while Earthlink was going to provide the faster but for pay service, has not commented on Earthlink's backing out.

Although the project appeared to make progress in January when San Francisco and Earthlink signed a contract, the plan was never voted on by the city's Board of Supervisors. Many backers of the project are disappointed with Earthlink's decision because the plan was almost ready to be voted on.

Although the plan is not going anywhere at the moment, it has not been abandoned yet. In November, a non-binding ballot will ask citizens if they want free Wi-Fi - politicians could be compelled to create a new plan if there is a high enough percentage of yes votes.

Read More (NYTimes.com)

New York State gets faster Sprint Mobile Broadband access

Customers across parts of New York State are now using a faster mobile broadband network from Sprint. Sprint Mobile Broadbanc with EV-DO Rev. A allows customers to browse the Internet and download large Email attachments.

For detailed information on which areas of New York State that have Sprint Mobile Broadband access, see the link below.

Read More (BusinessWire.com)

IBM Stores data on an atom

IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose discovered how to store data on a single atom. The company also stated that they used a single molecule as a switch, that could possibly replace transistors in the future. Building off this technology, one day it might be possible to make processors the size of a dust particle. According to IBM spokesman Matthew McMahon, the technology is at least 10 years away from being used.

Read More (ComputerWorld.com)

Special thanks to forum moderator Jason for submitting this story

 

Wow that is amazing that it is possible to store information on an atom! I wonder how it works exactly. It must have something to do with the charges.
Tim

 

It is a sad testimony to Dell in the way they have completely fouled their supply lines and drop quarter sales at this rate. It doesn't surprise me that even Apple spanked them in 2Q. Don't get me wrong, I like Dell, and I have several Dell products (purchased mostly back 12-18 months ago) and they work fine, but this news and their general detachment from anything style-worthy makes it difficult to consider a Dell in the near future. Well, maybe I will give the new M6300 a peep, but only because it is one of the few units touting the big quadro; BUT, if the new Clevo/Sager 9261 offers the big quadro, then game over, I will go 9261.

 

pwned! then again they dont really care do they.

 

Shouldn't be a big deal, Dell will bounce back.

 

Well I guess they may have found a way around the 16 nm wall.

 

Dell's problems right now aren't with the number of orders, its the number of notebooks they can build and ship. Its a good sign, since its shows that their notebooks are once again desirable, not the old pieces of junk they were before.

 

Yea I will quote that one for truth, at least we can see people want the laptops now.

 

Actually, I found it rather ironic that the loss in sales are due to the delay of shipping potentially successful products. Their build-to-order philosophy has bite them in the ass just like Lenovo... that is why companies offering ready-to-ship notebooks like Apple and HP have succeeded this back-to-school season.

 

Certainly. I think Dell needs to get their notebooks into some basic configurations and sell them through either their own line of retail stores or higher-end tech retailers like Best Buy, Circuit City, etc (not Walmart....)

 

This will help... but not with their current problem, which is manufacturing enough to meet their existing demand. Once they get that problem licked, it'll make more sense to look at getting into more retail stores.

 

I'm not too surprised about Dell's slump in the second quarter. A lot of people on this forum has commented on how they cancelled their order for either a Sony, HP, Lenovo, Apple, etc. And there have also been many returned notebooks for defective parts or replaced certain parts (ie. grainy screens, headphone noise, etc.) too.

I've found that configuring a Dell notebook is expensive compared to an HP with better components (in some cases). And Dell's Ispiron quality isn't too different from a HP either. I was very keen on getting one of the Ispirons or XPS but I've changed my mind since then due to pricing and delays.

 

I don't blame them. I'd cancel too if I had to even wait over two weeks to even get my notebook. Some people have been waiting for months and ended up getting lemons, so it's no surprise to me.

 

Imo when a mass market company like DELL sells less then Apple you know something is very wrong .

I'm not a bit surprised ( nothing worthwhile in DELLs new line ) and I think we are also missing a very important number which is how many of those notebooks were returned to DELL ?

DELL has always boasted its pushing its suppliers prices down ( and probably the workers wages too ) , could it be DELL over did it to the point they don't care if they supply DELL parts or not ?

 

so 20% less then last year.. and still they can't deliver others are selling more then dell and they can deliver, So last year they had plenty parts for selling 20% more and this year HP can ship 2.4M so they sold 3 times more then dell without parts problem?

I really start to wonder what really the problem is....

 

Wow, dell is selling the same number of notebooks as Apple ? I thought dell was selling way more !!!

 

Dell better start fixing it's "ability" to produce ugly notebooks.
Just giv it to the vendors for design if they ain't capable.

 

I had to wait almost 3 weeks for my MacBook Pro. Some people who ordered in June waited 6+ weeks to receive their computers.

Apple didn't have any computers ready to order unless you happened to walk into their store while they had new MBPs in stock.

Just nitpicking, I agree with the general point.

 

I like Dell products but I'm one of the ones that had to cancel due to delays and customer non-service.

I would have bought $4000 worth of computers in the last couple months but they lost that to Sony.

Hope they fix their issues!

 

Hehe, if Dell has bad service, I wonder what you are going to say about Sony...They aren't even bad service, its closer to disservice what Sony does.

I'm taking a chance on Dell, since they really do seem to be listening to things that customers want, except for a sleek design.

 

Surely from everything I've read Q3 won't be much better..like a previous poster I'd wait 2 weeks max. 4 weeks is poor, more than that is laughable for what could be considered a multinational.

 

The atom data storage thing is cool.

I am not surprised that Dell lost business due to the long delays since I personally wouldn't get a dell if it wasn't cheap. Not to start a fan war or anything, but I'd rather patiently wait for my t61p than a dell inspiron.

 

Storing data on an atom. ... I'm rendered speachless. That's a huge leap, at least to me it is.

The possibility that we could have computers with storage, computing speed, and just speed in general to be equal to, if not more than the human brain in the next 50-100 years is just fenominally high.

I'm incredibly curious on how they did that though. I'm also wondering what they stored on an atom. There's so many questions I have about the subject.

 

nanoengineering has your answers, and consequently your life.