DELL: Technology Innovation Enters New Era

The imagination of customers and millions of interactions with them every day are at the heart of groundbreaking new Dell products and services introduced today.

"It used to be that people had to keep up with technology, but now it is about technology keeping up with their imagination," said Michael Dell, Chairman of Dell Inc. "Our customers are becoming their own publishers, they choose how they want to be entertained and informed and it is their direct feedback that will drive Dell’s innovation."

Mr. Dell unveiled a new high-end gaming desktop, two flat-panel monitors, a product bundle designed to "gear up" any home and a new service available later this year.

"Innovation not only includes the development of new products, but also new services and how technology is integrated into our lives," Mr. Dell said during a keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show.

The Fiber Future
Mr. Dell described how the next "killer app" will be what a customer does with technology instead of a piece of new technology. Two enablers, he said, are an increase in penetration of fiber-speed networks to the home and technology hardware and software that work more seamlessly together.

Fiber penetration is in its infancy, but there are pockets of great progress, he said. Consumers currently have the ability to move 100 megabits of information per second in some countries, including Denmark, Japan and France. And Singapore has a stated goal of offering consumers 1 gigabit per second by 2015.

"The Internet has more digital content available than ever before – video, music, online gaming. DSL and cable broadband are on the rise, but a great digital experience requires something far faster: fiber," Mr. Dell said. "I applaud the telecommunications companies that are driving fiber to the home, and I encourage the entire telecom industry to step up and make such fiber available much more broadly."

New Products
At the heart of the new products introduced today is the XPSTM 710 H2C for PC enthusiasts and high end gamers.

The system, a first, incorporates a two-stage cooling process. First, a liquid-to-air heat exchanger works like a car’s radiator and fan system to remove heat from the processor. Then, ceramic-based thermoelectric cooling modules like those used in space shuttles remove additional heat. Sensors help prevent the formation of frost or condensation by helping to keep the processor slightly above ambient room temperature.

The XPS 710 H2C starts at $5,499 and is available worldwide.

The company also unveiled two new flat-panel monitors. Favored by gamers, photographers and digital-media experts, the company’s first 27 inch widescreen monitor has a 30-percent broader color spectrum than traditional monitors. The second, a 22 inch widescreen model, is rich in features and ideal for watching videos and playing games.

Both are available immediately worldwide, and priced at $1,399 and $329, respectively.

Mr. Dell also introduced a Home Media Suite, a product bundle that will gear up any room of a home. It includes a new digital television tuner that when combined with other products delivers a full, seamless digital-entertainment experience, including receiving and recording premium high-definition digital cable and streaming it wirelessly to other parts of the home.

The bundle includes an XPS 410 desktop, Windows Vista1 when available, digital TV tuner, 27-inch flat panel monitor, speakers, Dell All in One 966 printer, and an 802.11 dual band router and power line bridge. It will be delivered with all cables and adapters required for a typical home installation. Dell also will offer optional in-home service to set up the equipment.

The bundle will be available in the United States after the introduction of Microsoft’s Vista operating system later this month.

Future Services
Mr. Dell described a new service that will be available later this year in the United States – an online data-migration and backup capability. It will enable customers to securely transfer documents, programs, drivers, settings, and other data via a broadband connection to a secure data-storage portal.

Customers will then be able to have it preinstalled by Dell during the manufacturing process, alleviating the need to do it themselves after delivery.

"Consumers have repeatedly told us they’d like this type of assistance and we’re answering the call," he added. "Dell is uniquely positioned to offer these personalized services because of our direct model – nobody else can do this the way we can."

Imaginative Customers
Joining Mr. Dell onstage was Naomi Halas, a scientist from Houston’s Rice University, who developed the first completely non-toxic treatment for cancer.

Dr. Halas discovered that small particles, or "nanoshells," naturally accumulated in tumors when injected in the veins of cancerous mice. Using a laser, the small particles could be heated to a point where the tumors would be destroyed without damaging the surrounding cells.

Dr. Halas and her team use Dell technology for design and simulation of the particles, to monitor and record experiments and synthesize data.

Mr. Dell also described a family’s home in Austin, Texas, that Dell geared up with six personalized notebooks and one desktop computer, software, wireless routers and other technology. ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition chose the house to completely renovate after the family was near foreclosure. The show will air in February.

"What’s really exciting for me and the entire Dell team is what customers are doing with our technology," Mr. Dell said. "We are highly motivated to keep up with their ideas."