HP

The headline read, "Dell's business priorities drive revenue up 10 percent in fourth quarter." The real story was that profits slumped 6.5 percent because of a bevy of charges.

What it means is that Michael Dell still has a lot of work ahead. Dell has already fired 3,200 employees in the last eight months to get costs down. But the restructuring work isn't over and it will impact future earnings. (In the press release, Dell's PR team put it more delicately, allowing that "the company will continue to incur costs as it … Read more

Long before you had Hillary versus Obama, you had Carly versus Hurd. (Strange how both women were commonly referred to by their first names--but let's leave that to another day.)

Even before Hewlett-Packard dumped her, I was on record arguing that Fiorina was under-appreciated and was drawing flak, in part, because of her gender. I also thought she did HP a huge favor by shaking up its sclerotic corporate culture and planted seeds that ultimately would bear fruit for the company.

By now, that's only interest as a bar room argument. What's clear is that Mark Hurd has HP … Read more

PDAs aren't dead yet. Nor is Intel's XScale chip technology. Hewlett-Packard's new, attractive big-screen handheld packs an application processor that still includes plenty of Intel's XScale DNA.

HP is now shipping production units of the long-awaited iPaq 210 (originally slated to ship last year) that features a 4.0-inch, 640x480 (VGA) resolution screen. The 210 (which is rebranded internationally as the 211, 212, and 214), comes with a Marvell PXA310 processor running at 624MHz, 128MB of memory, and 256MB of flash ROM.

Though Intel sold the business that made XScale processors to Marvell more than a … Read more

I finally got my hands on a MacBook Air. Though I'm sure I'm repeating what some others have said already, I needed to state one thing before I do a more extensive evaluation: this unbelievably thin notebook is rock solid.

NOTE: This is not an official CNET review. And is not by any means a full review. Just a quick first-look. Official CNET product review is here.

One of the concerns I had--and I'm sure I'm not alone--is whether a notebook this thin will be flimsy and overly delicate. The answer is a resounding no. It … Read more

Hewlett-Packard has committed to Advanced Micro Devices' quad-core Opteron "Barcelona" processors in its Proliant DL585 servers, according to company documents.

This comes as AMD is preparing to send samples of its "B3" quad-core Opteron processor to customers. The B3 stepping (or version) fixes, in silicon, a rarely occurring glitch in the Barcelona chip, referred to as the TLB bug. The bug has delayed shipment of quad-core chips to top-tier U.S. server vendors, giving Intel a leg-up in the high-end server market.

Currently, Proliant DL585 G2 servers use dual-core Opteron processors. But HP documentation updated last … Read more

If we didn't know better, we might suspect that HP has undergone a makeover on TLC's What Not to Wear. The historically stodgey computer maker flashed a little bit of skin recently with its fashion-conscious Bluetooth mouse, and now it's making an even louder statement with its "Clay" laptop.

No, you can't make pottery out of it, but the special-edition computer goes beyond just new colors. In addition to its bronze-hued shell, according to Chip Chick, the laptop sports a textured interior surface that resembles brushed molding clay.

The innards are nothing to write … Read more

Dell will begin offering Intel's "Penryn" processor as an option on several notebooks within a week or so, according to sources close to the computer giant.

Although the 45-nanometer generation of Penryn processors targeted at laptops was announced back in early January, the chips haven't exactly leaped into laptop lineups.

So far, Hewlett-Packard is the biggest taker of one Penryn chip: the Core 2 Duo T9300 (2.5GHz, 6MB L2 cache). The HP Pavilion dv6700t, dv9700t, and dv2700t series all use the T9300. The massive 20-inch Pavilion HDX also offers the T9500 (2.6GHz, 6MB cache) … Read more

Is your tiny desk space making you feel down? Do you have secret desires to dismember that elephantine beast your IT department calls a laser printer? Well, you can stop popping that Valium because HP has launched its smallest laser printer to date, the LaserJet P1005. Crave first learned of this black-and-white model last summer, but it's now available on the market.

Taking up about the same area as a 15.4-inch notebook, the printer claims to be able to push out its first copy in under 8.5 seconds (from the PowerSave mode) with an average speed of … Read more