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Dell announced today that its profits in the second quarter of its fiscal year fell 18% from the year before, landing at $732 million and prompting an after hours stock price dip. At the time of this writing, Dell’s stock is down by 4.28% to $11.81 after hours, with the stock finishing the regular trading day at $12.34, only a 1.75% decrease. The Wall Street Journal reports that Dell’s sinking profits come from the computer manufacturer’s struggles with a consumer base that is increasingly opting for mobile devices while they decide to wait on PC purchases.

Revenues were also down in the quarter, slipping 7.5% year-over-year to $14.48 billion. That’s actually a 0.4% increase over the last quarter, but that tiny increase did nothing to impress investors, who were expecting a 2% to 4% increase over the previous quarter. This less-than-stellar second quarter has forced Dell to not only lower its projections for the third quarter, but for the financial year as a whole.

Dell now expects Q3′s profits to come in 2% to 5% lower than originally expected, settling somewhere in the area of $13.7 billion to $14.2 billion. Despite the fact that profits will be lower than expected, that’s still a pretty decent number for the quarter, but the real kicker comes in Dell’s retooled expectations for the whole year. Whereas once the company was projecting that earnings-per-share would be coming in above FY 2012′s $2.13, it now says that it’s expecting an earnings-per-share value of “at least $1.70.”

Overall, Dell’s stock has fallen 18% over the course of the past three months, which isn’t too good. Now the company is gearing up to post lower-than-expected results for the rest of the year, but you never know with these things, especially with the holiday season just around the corner. That holiday shopping season could give Dell’s profits quite a boost, but then again, consumers could just as easily skip the PCs and go with the smartphones and the tablets instead. Stay tuned.

Dell profits tumble by 18% in Q2, stock price dips is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Don’t dial up Dell’s slimy tech support unless you hate yourself. Laptop Magazine did some undercover sleuthing and in a simple call about a battery issue, a rep claimed that they had won a sweepstakes that entitled them to pay Dell $317 for a four-year extended warranty. What luck! More »

Following sharp comments from Acer’s JT Wang surrounding Microsoft’s decision to compete with vital OEM partners in the tablet space, Mike Angiulo — the vice president of Microsoft’s Ecosystem and Planning team — has stepped to the plate with a resounding “thank you” to those very associates. Aside from praising those who will be helping to make Windows RT more than a passing fad, the company affirmed that ASUS, Dell, Samsung and Lenovo will all be shipping ARM-based products with the aforementioned operating system onboard. This pretty much confirms that the Yoga will indeed ship as a WinRT variant, and it also makes clear that Dell’s hard work for a spot in the lineup paid off. Exact model details aren’t being disclosed, nor are ship dates, but it’s becoming abundantly clear that Microsoft is working overtime behind the scenes to give its allies equal footing come October 26th.

Filed under: Tablet PCs

Microsoft trumpets Windows RT OEM partners, lists ASUS, Dell, Lenovo and Samsung originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Aug 2012 13:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When it comes to technology and the end of a financial quarter, you can bet your wage there’ll be an analyst report or two letting you what’s what. And according to Gartner’s latest estimates for Western Europe, PCs didn’t fare too well in Q2 of this year, with a 2.4 percent decrease in shipments compared with the same period in 2011. Consignments of mobile PCs (read: not tablets) grew by 4 percent, while desktops floundered, dropping 12.8 percent. Of this, a minor growth of 0.4 percent was recorded in consumer PCs, while the professional market decreased by 5.3 percent. Among the big hitters, HP remained at the top of the pile despite losing some market share, and Acer remained in second position with a mild increase in the same. ASUS put in a healthy performance, moving the company up to bronze medal position, while Dell dropped off the podium to fourth. The vendor statistics for the whole region were echoed in France in Germany, but during the quarter Apple managed to break into the top five in the UK market. Meike Escherich, principal analyst at Gartner, attributes the overall performance to economic uncertainty in the region, as well as lackluster demand in the wait for Windows 8 machines. We don’t want to spoil all the fun, so a comprehensive breakdown of the numbers awaits you at the source link.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Gartner reports Western Europe desktop shipments down, portable PCs up in Q2 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to Engadget’s back to school guide! The end of summer vacation isn’t nearly as much fun as the weeks that come before, but a chance to update your tech tools likely helps to ease the pain. Today we’re getting down to the very important business of helping you sift through laptops — and you can head to the back to school hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the month. Be sure to keep checking back — at the end of August we’ll be giving away a ton of the gear featured in our guides — you can hit up the hub page right here!

Given their roots — luxury machines like the original MacBook Air ($1,800) and last year’s Samsung Series 9 ($1,649) — you’d be forgiven if you initially dismissed Ultrabooks as being too extravagant for a college-bound student. Thankfully, though, prices have sunk so low that you can now find a thin, fast, ultraportable laptop for as little as $700. The only problem, perhaps, is a paradox of choice: the selection is already crowded with dozens of contenders, and there are 100-some-odd more models in the pipeline, according to Intel. Fortunately for you, dear readers, we’ve had the chance to handle or even review many of them, and were able to whittle down the offerings to a handful of promising contenders. Whether you’re prepared to spend $750 or $1,400, we have something that’ll fit the bill.

Continue reading Engadget’s back to school guide 2012: ultraportables

Filed under: Laptops

Engadget’s back to school guide 2012: ultraportables originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Aug 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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