May 2007 - Posts

• Responsible Global Citizenship in our Supply Chain

  Thu. May. 31, 2007
  by John Naughton, VP—WW Procurement

  We convened a Global Citizenship workshop today here in Shenzhen focused on workplace issues in our supply chain. The participation was great with 15 suppliers and more than 50 attendees including representatives from Dell’s WWP and Sustainability Teams. Jeremy Prepscius, Asia Director of Business for Social Responsibility, provided an inspiring keynote presentation on corporate social responsibility which set the stage for the remainder of the day.

  Earlier this year at Dell’s Supplier Conference, Michael Dell and I both talked about how Dell drives for results with our supply chain partners and how we must achieve results the right way. That means ensuring sound environmental practices, employee safety and a high degree of moral and ethical integrity in all that we do. Driving Electronic Industry Code of Conduct standards into our supply chain will make this happen.

  We asked our suppliers to sign a letter committing to EICC standards as well as disseminate these principles to their suppliers. EICC membership and benefits information was presented and we encouraged our supplier partners to join and to help drive this industry wide initiative.

  Dell has been working directly with suppliers on these matters in 1 X 1 settings and during other business meetings for the past 3 years to disseminate and implement the EICC principles.

  Dell’s Business Process Improvement (BPI) methodology was also discussed as a proven, successful means to drive systemic improvements in quality and productivity. We’ve extended this methodology into Global Citizenship and spent the last year in a pilot program with 5 suppliers where BPI projects were used to address employee work hours and days off per month. We asked suppliers at this Workshop to sign up as executive sponsors for a Global Citizenship BPI project to address their most significant EICC area of opportunity.

  A few suppliers discussed best practices around implementing EICC. Some have made tremendous strides and already have provided EICC training to their suppliers or have plans to make that happen this year.

  We will hold another Global Citizenship Workshop in China later this year focusing on driving EICC awareness and standards deeper into the supply chain where there will be more gaps to these principles and therefore more opportunities for improvement. So expect to hear from me in the fall to report out on the results of that event. Stay tuned…
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• Energy Star 4.0

  Wed. May. 30, 2007
  by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

  We’ve been focused on building more energy-efficient products. Today we announced that our OptiPlex 740 and 745 and corporate desktops meet Energy Star 4.0 requirements. Additionally, we expect to be one of the first PC companies to complete Energy Star 4.0 compliance across multiple desktop, notebook and workstation product lines ahead of the EPA’s July 2007 deadline.

  The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star program is a joint effort between the EPA and manufacturers to reduce air pollution by promoting energy-efficient products. Dell has actively participated in the Energy Star program since 1993 and currently offers multiple products that meet the EPA requirements.

  The Energy Star 4.0 specification sets a more stringent standard for energy efficiency. Customers can further exceed that standard with the addition of Dell’s Energy Smart power settings. In the case of OptiPlex 740 and 745 systems with flat panel monitors, customers can save up to 77 percent in power consumption compared to previous generation systems.

  Our Latitude D531, D630 and D830 notebooks announced earlier this month are also available with Energy Star 4.0 configurations. We will achieve compliance on configurations of Dell Precision workstations in the coming weeks.

  For more information on our Energy Smart products, please visit www.dell.com/energy. You can also learn all about Dell’s environmental and energy efficiency programs at www.dell.com/earth.
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• I'm in Canada for the mesh 2007 Conference

  Tue. May. 29, 2007
  by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

  After a good long weekend with the family, I'm heading to Canada this week. My main reason for the trip is to attend the mesh 2007 conference. On Thursday afternoon, I’m looking forward to being part of a panel discussion called Building a Community—How and Why it Matters. Other folks on the panel Jordan Banks, managing director of eBay Canada and commandN co-host/community pro Will Pate. Microsoft's Mark Relph is the moderator for the discussion.
  

  While I’m here, I’ll also be taking part in Third Tuesday with Joe Thornley and others, talking to Dell employees in Toronto and some media outlets about digital media, and will spend some time on-air with David Onley at CityNews over the next couple of days.

  Besides sharing these details, the other reason why I’m telling you this is because it will probably impact comment moderation and response for the next few days. I’ll be working sporadically to keep things on track, but it may take me a bit longer than normal.

  Later this week, I’ll share my thoughts on how things went here. Thanks in advance for your patience.
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• Dell & Wal-Mart: One Small Step

  Thu. May. 24, 2007
  by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

  In his interview with CRN, Michael said we would be retail outlets in U.S. and major countries around the world over the next several quarters. Working with Wal-Mart to sell Dimension E521 desktops in 3,000 stores in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico is a small first step. Customers will have the option to purchase a Dimension E521 desktop without a monitor or an E521 with a 19-inch flat panel. Systems will be available beginning June 10. Dell will provide support for these systems.

  Why are we doing this? Customers are asking for additional ways to purchase Dell products, and we plan to deliver on a global level. It's also worth noting that anything we do in retail or with solution providers moving forward will only augment or core direct business model, not replace it. Seems like I'm saying this a lot lately, but stay tuned—much more to come in this area.
  
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• Dell Offers Three Consumer Systems With Ubuntu 7.04

  Thu. May. 24, 2007
  by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

  It’s finally here. Later today, Dell will offer U.S customers three different systems with Ubuntu 7.04 installed: the XPS 410n and Dimension E520n desktops and the Inspiron E1505n notebook. These systems are now available at www.dell.com/open today. Starting price for the E520n desktop and the E1505n notebook is $599; the XPS 410n starts at $899 $849. Note from Lionel:  My apologies, but I had included an incorrect starting price for the XPS 410n. It will be $849.
  

  Hardware support will come from Dell. Beyond that, users can turn to the Linux section of the Dell Community Forum for help and also get the latest updates from our Linux team at www.dell.com/linux http://linux.dell.com. Users also have fee-based options for operating system support through Canonical, including 30-day Get Started, One-year Basic and One-year Standard.

  As John said in his post earlier this week, initially we will offer a subset of the component options we support on the three systems. We will continue to work with vendors to improve the stability of the associated Linux drivers moving forward. That’s part of our longer-term goal to increase the number of drivers that work at the kernel level—something Direct2Dell readers made very clear. We’ll get there, it just takes time.

  Update 5-25: Beyond this first step of offering three platforms with Ubuntu pre-installed, another goal we have is to introduce Linux to a wider audience. If you're new to Linux or would like to understand more about open source, check out this StudioDell video: Linux 101: What's all the Fuss?
  

  Dell is doing this because of your clear feedback in IdeaStorm. User dhart submitted this idea on February 16—the first day we launched IdeaStorm and it quickly became the #1 idea. Since then, about 30,000 community members weighed in to support it, and over 100,000 of you completed the Linux survey to tell us more.

  In this vlog, I had the pleasure to interview John Hull and key members of his team that helped us get to this point today. In addition to John, you'll hear from Roger Noriega and Rezwanul Kabir, who were the desktop and notebook leads, respectively. You'll also hear perspective from Hatim Amro about work he did to get systems with Ubuntu through Dell's manufacturing process.

  Format: flv Duration: 5:51

  Downloads WMV  MP4  OGG

  To the worldwide Linux community, I wanted to thank you for all your support. Linux-related posts are the three most viewed posts since we launched the blog back in July 2006. The Linux survey post and the Ubuntu 7.04 post are also the top two most commented blog entries as well—both received well over 500 comments. That makes it hard to keep up with comment moderation, but it's a problem I love to have.

  Thanks for giving us a chance to show what Dell 2.0 is about. While this is a milestone that a lot of us will remember, it’s just the beginning—plenty more to come.
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• Project Hybrid and Technology Preview in San Francisco

  Wed. May. 23, 2007
  by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

  Last week Kevin Kettler, Dell's CTO and Jay Parker, director of Dell PowerEdge servers were in San Francisco to talk to media and bloggers about something we call Project Hybrid. Some of you may have seen some coverage from outlets like eWeek, internetnews.com and Gearlog. Project Hybrid is about simplifying much of the complexity that IT managers face every day—IT infrastructure, power and space requirements, consolidation, software complexity and systems management. You'll hear more about this initiative throughout the year.
  

  This video is 43 minutes long, but if you're interested in technology, it might be worth checking out. Kevin talks through some technologies that we're currently shipping like the H2C liquid cooling solution, solid state disk drives, and he also previews upcoming technology concepts like DisplayPort and Storage Bridge Bay. Jay defines Project Hybrid, and previews our upcoming blade servers.
  

  Format: flv Duration: 42:43

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• XPS 720 H2C is Here, Officially

  Tue. May. 22, 2007
  by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

  I'm sure many of you out there already saw the Engadget story last week. Today, we're officially taking orders for the 720 H2C here in the United States. Customers in Europe will be able to order soon. I know that a lot of you were waiting for details of our next-generation motherboard, and this is it. The 720 H2C utilizes the same motherboard we will ship in the XPS 720. In other words, it's the one that XPS 700 users can soon upgrade to for free, and the one XPS 710 customers can purchase.

  The XPS 720 board is a Dell implementation of NVIDIA's 680i chipset. If you're familiar with the 680i chipset, you already know it brings several performance enhancements, like support for processors like Intel's QX6700 and QX6800 processors that support a 1066MHz front side bus, Corsair Dominator 800MHz Enhanced Performance Profile (EPP) memory overclocked to 1066MHz.

  I've seen some of you asking if the memory runs at 1066MHz native speed. No, it does not. Corsair also makes it clear in this PDF that the Dominator EPP memory runs at 800MHz native and can be overclocked to 1066MHz.In the BIOS, customers who purchase Corsair memory with their system will have two options for the memory settings. Standard runs at the native clock speed of 800MHz, while SLI/EPP will run it at the overclocked 1066MHz speed.
  

  The XPS 720 board provides more overclocking flexibility compared to our previous gaming systems. XPS 720 customers will have the ability to overclock the CPU, the memory, and the graphics processor. The board also allows CPU and memory overclocking in the BIOS and via NVIDIA's nTune software. Through nTune, users can modify systems clocks, voltages, memory timings, fans and more. One 680i feature that the XPS 720 board does not support is NVIDIA's dual Gigabit ethernet controllers. That also means that it doesn't support NVIDIA's DualNet or FirstPacket technology capability.

  Note: You can click on the attached nTune screenshot below to open a larger version of the image. 
  

  
  The XPS 720 H2C ships with the following components overclocked from the factory:

  • 2.66GHz QX6700 factory overclocked to 3.46GHz
  • 2.93GHz QX6800 factory overclocked to 3.73GHz
  • Corsair 800MHz EPP memory factory overclocked to 1066MHz

  The H2C part is our liquid-cooled solution that we've been shipping in the XPS 710 H2C. In case you missed it, this blog entry features a video overview of how the cooling technology works from one of the lead engineers on the product, Chuck Hood. 

  The 720 H2C also ships with a 2X Blu-ray optical drive. Those of you that have seen our XPS M1710 gaming notebook might already know about our LightFX toolkit. XPS 720 customers will now have more flexibility with 16 LED colors. Game developers can use LightFX to incoroporate LEDs into gameplay to simulate things like fire, damage, and life drain.

  In this video, David McClintock, the platform design engineer, talks about how the XPS 720 H2C and the 720 board were designed for overclocking. He discusses how EPP memory works, and more.

  Format: flv Duration: 6:09

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• XPS 700 Motherboard Exchange Update #4: Registration Process Coming

  Mon. May. 21, 2007
  by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

  Update, 8/13:  The link for the XPS 700 Exchange Program is now live:
  

  www.XPSUpgradeProgramDell.com 

  For those of you who have already completed the XPS 700 Motherboard Exchange survey, thank you—we definitely appreciate your feedback. Lots of you have been asking when we will begin the Exchange Program. I can't tell you the timeframe just yet. What I can say is soon we will offer a way for customers to register for this program. I'll share more details on the registration process when we have it set up.
  

  A registration process will allow worldwide customers to register ahead of time. That way, you won't have to watch for specific blog posts or Dell Community Forum updates to know when we are starting the program. More details coming soon.
  
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• Ubuntu 7.04 Offering—Technical Details

  Mon. May. 21, 2007
  by John Hull, Manager of Linux OS Engineering

  Before we announce the availability of Ubuntu 7.04 on select Dell client systems, I'd like to give an overview of what customers can expect from our initial Ubuntu offering.

  Availabile Software and Hardware

  • The default software from the Ubuntu media will be installed on the system, including kernel and applications.
  • The peripheral options offered with Ubuntu will be a subset of what is offered with other operating systems. We're offering the hardware options on each system that have the most mature and stable Linux driver support. These hardware options have been thoroughly tested by the Linux team here at Dell.
  • We configure/install open source drivers for hardware, when possible.
  • We use partial open-source or closed source ("restricted" in Ubuntu terms) drivers where there is no equivalent open-source driver. This includes Intel wireless cards and Conexant modems.
  • We will have a wiki page on our linux.dell.com website that gives technical details of the supported systems, information on the device drivers used for system peripherals, details of our Ubuntu factory-installation, and information on the problems we found during our testing, with their fixes/workarounds.
  • We recommend Linux users buy Dell printers that have PostScript engines in them. The previous hyperlink lists those printers. You can also check in the Tech Specs tab for each printer on Dell.com show if it has PostScript or not.

  Software and Hardware Not Offered

  • For hardware options not offered with this release, we are working with the vendors of those devices to improve the maturity and stability of their associated Linux drivers. While this may not happen overnight, we do expect to have a broader range of hardware support with Linux over time.
  • At this time, we are not including any support for proprietary audio or video codecs that are not already distributed with Ubuntu 7.04. These include MPEG 1/2/3/4, WMA, WMV, DVD, Quicktime, etc. We are evaluating options for providing this support in the future.
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• Dell Tablet PC

  Fri. May. 18, 2007
  by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

  There's been some chatter about a Latitude Tablet PC coming from Dell. Check out what Jeff Clarke has to say.

  Update: 12/10—I just posted new details about the Latitude XT here. More information coming tomorrow.

  Update: 12/11—Glenn just published his post—it features an almost 10-minute vlog discussing the capacitive touch capability and the concept of freestyle computing.

  Format: flv Duration: 0:58

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