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Similar to what we've done in the United States, we will configure and install open source drivers for hardware, when possible for these new products. See John Hull's Technical Details post for a more detailed explanation. Recently, some IdeaStorm readers asked why we discontinued the Inspiron E1505N in the United States. The answer is that we transitioned to the Inspiron 1420N, which is a product that we do not offer in the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

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At the end of May, the No. 2 PC maker will begin selling some consumer-focused laptop and desktop models with Ubuntu's new "Feisty Fawn" version of Linux installed, Dell spokesman Kent Cook said. The company plans to announce the Linux move Tuesday on its IdeaStorm Web site, launched in February to gather feedback directly from customers about what they want. When buying the Dell systems, customers will have the option to purchase support from Ubuntu backer Canonical, said Jane Silber, the start-up's director of operations.

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Software:

* Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn
* VMWare Workstation 6 Beta
* OpenOffice.org 2.2
* Automatix2
* Firefox 2.0.0.3
* Evolution Groupware 2.10

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Dell has heard you and we will expand our Linux support beyond our existing servers and Precision workstation line. Our first step in this effort is offering Linux pre-installed on select desktop and notebook systems. We will provide an update in the coming weeks that includes detailed information on which systems we will offer, our testing and certification efforts, and the Linux distribution(s) that will be available. The countdown begins today.

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In its executive ranks, the number of top managers who report to Dell would be streamlined from more than 20 to 12. "We have great people...but we also have a new enemy: bureaucracy, which costs us money and slows us down," he wrote The moves come as Dell tries to retake its lead in the PC market. In 2006, Dell started growing slower than the market, the first time that has happened since the company started back in the mid-1980s. HP overtook Dell as the largest PC manufacturer midway through 2006. Dell fell short of that $60 billion target during its 2006 fiscal year, with $55.9 billion in revenue.

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"The usual bag of tricks--leveraging the supply chain and their economies of scale--hasn't worked," Richard Shim, an analyst with IDC, said after Dell announced the departure of Rollins. Dell has lost both its market share lead and most-favored hardware company status on Wall Street to Hewlett-Packard. In trying to regain market share, Dell may have spent too much time bottom-feeding on the low end of the PC market, eroding the operating margins that were once the envy of the entire PC industry.

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Karl Kamb Jr., previously HP's vice president of business development and strategy, was named as a defendant in a federal lawsuit filed by HP in 2005. It alleges that onetime HP employees illegally started a rival flat-screen TV company while still working at HP and it is claiming up to $100 million in damages. Kamb, who has denied any wrongdoing, filed a countersuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on Friday, according to legal documents. Among Kamb's allegations: That in 2002, HP hired Katsumi Iizuka, a president of Dell Japan until 1995, to supply information on Dell's plans to enter the printer business. That "senior HP management" signed off on the payments to Iizuka.

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Dell already scrapped its longtime Intel exclusivity in May, committing to sell a four-processor server with AMD's Opteron by the end of the year. That's a relatively high-end niche for the Round Rock, Texas-based computer maker, but sources familiar with the company's plans expect a broader alliance to be announced Thursday afternoon, when Dell reports quarterly financial results. One source expected Dell to announce plans to sell dual-processor Opteron servers, a segment of the market with much higher sales volumes than for four-processor machines. Another expected the alliance to include desktop and notebook computers as well.

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The battery packs were included in some models of Round Rock, Texas-based Dell's Latitude, Inspiron, XPS and precision mobile workstation notebooks. Dell launched a Web site, http://www.dellbatteryprogram.com , that described the affected models. Williams said the Web site would tell consumers how to get free replacement batteries from Dell. Rick Clancy, a Sony spokesman, said the companies have studied problems with the battery packs intensely for more than a month, after getting reports of about a half-dozen fires or smoking laptops in the United States.