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The news fuelled fears that the PC industry has not fully emerged from its downturn and sent Dell shares more than 4% lower.

The world’s number three PC maker projected sales would be down 7% this quarter from the previous quarter, when it posted revenue of $16 billion. That translates into about $14.9 billion, below the average forecast for roughly $15.2 billion.

Dell’s financial fourth quarter earnings also came in below expectations as strength in its corporate business was offset by the weakness in the division that caters to public businesses.

Revenue in Dell’s fiscal fourth quarter was up 2% at $16 billion. Net profit slid 18% to $764m, or 43 cents a share, for the period. Excluding once-off items, it earned 51 cents a share, a cent below the 52 cents expected.

Dell’s large-enterprise business held up well, increasing sales 5% in the quarter to $4.9 billion, as corporations continued to upgrade aging hardware. Dell’s public business generated revenue of $3.9 billion, which was down 1% from a year ago due to weakness in the US and Western Europe while Dell’s sales to consumers fell 2% over the same period.

Chief financial officer Brian Gladden said profit margins for the quarter were hurt by a combination of weakness in US public spending, discounting of the leftover inventory of its previous generation phones and the lingering impact of the Thailand flood on its product mix.

“We just didn’t get the mix of drives that we wanted and it really forced us to sell less configured lower-end systems and prevented us from accessing higher margin more highly configured systems,” he said.

PC makers have grappled with slackening demand as mobile devices such as Apple iPad erode market share, while a shortage of hard drives after flooding in Thailand affected supply.

Dell has been trying to boost profit margins by getting out of low-margin businesses and focusing on being a one-stop-shop for business customers.

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Japanese stock price data provided by Nomura Research Institute Ltd.; quotes delayed 20 minutes. Canadian fund data provided by CANNEX Financial Exchanges Ltd.

On Tuesday, the computer maker said its fourth-quarter profit dropped 18 percent to $764 million, and its revenue prediction for the current quarter was short of Wall Street analysts’ expectations.

Like other PC makers, the Round Rock, Texas, company was squeezed in the past quarter by parts shortages caused by massive flooding in Thailand in October. The fallout from that catastrophe temporarily closed Thailand factories that churn out hard drives, driving up the prices that Dell had to pay for them.

But Dell also has other problems. Cutbacks at government agencies facing budget deficits have added to Dell’s troubles in the U.S. and Western Europe. And consumers are increasingly choosing sleek tablets and smartphones made by Apple Inc.

Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu maintained his underperform rating on the stock, saying that investors have underestimated the competitive threat to Dell from Apple and other rivals such as Acer, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard.

Shaw said Dell may have a difficult time improving its operations.

Dell representatives could not immediately be reached for comment early Wednesday.

Dell expects its revenue for the quarter ending in April to fall about 7 percent from the just-completed quarter, to $14.9 billion — about $100 million below analyst estimates.

But the release of Microsoft Corp.‘s next operating system, Windows 8, could help Dell and other PC makers meet growing demand for more tablet-like experiences. A specific timetable for Windows 8′s release hasn’t been announced, but analysts expect it to hit the market in late summer or early autumn.

Dell fell $1.24, or 6.8 percent, to $16.97.

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Is the iTunes Store scheduled for a major redesign?

(Credit:
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)

iTunes users who’ve been wishing for a kinder, gentler version of the online store may finally get their wish.

Apple is said to be prepping a redesign of the iTunes Store and the App Store for later this year, says 9to5Mac. The goal would be to make the store simpler and help people more easily and quickly find the content they need.

Apple has reportedly told its various music and entertainment partners that it wants to make the iTunes Store a “much more engaging experience,” 9to5Mac added. The redesign is considered a “top priority” for Apple in light of rival operations such as Amazon’s online music store and Spotify’s music streaming service.

The overhaul would affect the iTunes experience for music, movies, TV shows, and apps but could include the iBookstore as well. Changes to the iOS mobile versions of the iTunes Store and App Store are likely in the works as well.

Still unknown, however, is whether the revamp would extend to the actual iTunes desktop application, says 9to5Mac. It’s possible Apple would redo its online store but only unveil a small update to iTunes 10.

Well, here’s one iTunes user hoping Apple will revamp the iTunes application as well.

The iTunes desktop app began life as a relatively simple way to synchronize your
iPod content with your computer. But over the years, the program has become more complicated, more bloated, and more confusing.

I teach an
iPad class for adults in my spare hours. The students typically find the iPad fairly intuitive and enjoy learning its various features.

But when I show them iTunes, their eyes start to glaze over as if they can’t understand why they need to use this cumbersome piece of software.

Apple has continually focused on adding new features, such as Ping and iTunes Match, but in so doing has also turned iTunes into a beast of a program.

I run iTunes primarily on a
Windows 7 PC. Of all the software I use, iTunes gives me the most amount of trouble. It freezes, it hangs, it crashes. To be fair, the last few versions have improved the stability somewhat. Version 10 doesn’t freeze or crash as often as did the previous versions. But it still reeks of software that definitely needs an overhaul with an eye toward simplicity and reliability.

So a redesign of the iTunes Store and App Store would be a step in the right direction. But what we really need is a kinder and gentler iTunes app itself.

Dell CEO Michael Dell

Stronger sales to businesses during the fourth quarter weren’t enough to help Dell offset a slump in sales to consumers and businesses, as the Round Rock, Texas-based company posted fourth-quarter earnings that fell short of expectations Tuesday.

Dell shares fell 4.89% in after-hours trading.

The PC maker posted net income of $764 million, or 43 cents a share, on sales of $16.03 billion; compared to net income of $927 million, or 48 cents a share, on sales of $15.69 billion during the year-ago period.

Excluding items, Dell earned $913 billion, or 51 cents a share. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected earnings of $958.84 million, or 52 cents per share.

On a conference call with reporters Tuesday Dell Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden cited challenges securing a steady supply of hard-drives for higher-margin products in the wake of floods that devastated hard drive factories in Thailand that supply much of the world’s supply.

Dell said in a statement that it expects first quarter revenues to fall 7% from the prior quarter. Dell said it expects earnings per share, excluding items, of more than $2.13, for the 2013 fiscal year.

Dell Chief Executive Michael Dell has been slowly reshaping the company he founded, shifting into higher margin products and services targeting corporate data centers even as Dell continues cranking out PCs — a business HP flirted with dumping last year.

That mix makes Dell a particularly valuable barometer, since Dell competes with Apple in the high-end PC market, Asus and Acer in the mainstream PC market, HTC and Samsung in tablets and smartphones, IBM in the data center, and HP just about everywhere.

For the quarter, Dell posted:

• $4.9 billion in large enterprise revenues, up 5% from the year-ago quarter;
• $3.9 billion in sales to government agencies, down 1%
• $4 billion in sales to small and medium businesses, up 6%;
• and $3.2 billion in sales to consumers, down 2%.

Dell shares fell 89 cents, or 4.89%, to $17.32 in after-hours trading Tuesday.

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Good news if you’re the proud owner of a Nvidia GeForce graphics card: after a flood of beta drivers, the first WHQL-certified drivers from the Release 295 family are ready to roll. Nvidia promises that the 295.73 WHQL drivers pack in all the upgrades found in the recent beta drivers, “plus a few other treats.” Every GeForce card ever released looks to be supported.

The 295.73 drivers increase performance and offer a slew of compatibility upgrades for all kinds of Nvidia technology, including 3D Vision, PhysX and SLI support. Numerous titles earned new bells and whistles. Nvidia even threw in SLI support for the Mass Effect 3 demo, and Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 all see significant tweaks. Graphics aren’t the only beneficiary of these drivers, by the way: HD Audio and Nvidia Surround received updates and additional mobo support.

Normally, we’d list games that received 3D Vision or SLI improvements, but the 295.73 drivers include a lot of changes. For specific info about improvements for Skyrim and ME3, check out the blog post announcing the release, or just head over to the GeForce drivers page, enter your PC’s info, and see the complete list of improvements for yourself. Heck, why not download the drivers while you’re there?

Enlarge image

Dell Forecast Trails Estimates Amid Sluggish Computer Sales

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

A Dell Ultrabook at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

A Dell Ultrabook at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Feb 21 (Bloomberg) — Ashok Kumar, senior technology analyst at Maxim Group LLC, talks about Dell Inc.’s fiscal fourth-quarter performance and the company’s server and storage businesses.
Kumar speaks with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.” Bloomberg’s Cory Johnson also speaks. (Source: Bloomberg)

Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) — Mark Lehmann, president of JMP Securities, independent trader Andrew Keene and Bloomberg’s Bill Maloney talk about the outlook for Dell Inc.
They speak with Trish Regan on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.” (Source: Bloomberg)

Enlarge image

Michael Dell

Tony Avelar/Bloomberg

Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer of Dell Inc.

Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer of Dell Inc. Photographer: Tony Avelar/Bloomberg

Dell Inc. (DELL) fell as much as 5.1
percent in late trading yesterday after its first-quarter sales
forecast missed analysts’ estimates, dragged down by lackluster
personal-computer demand from consumers and governments.

Revenue for the period ending in April will decrease 7
percent to $14.9 billion, Round Rock, Texas-based Dell said in a
statement. That trailed the average $15.1 billion estimate of
analysts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The sluggish sales — coupled with shrinking profit last
quarter — have raised concerns about Dell’s comeback plan,
which has relied on streamlining operations to boost earnings.
After an almost 25 percent gain in Dell’s shares this year, some
investors may have been overly optimistic about the company’s
ability to turn around its operations, said Brian Marshall, an
analyst at ISI Group Inc. in San Francisco.

“The ship is so big that to move the needle is a herculean
feat,” said Marshall, who has a “neutral” rating on the
shares. “Expectations are way too high.”

Dell, the world’s third-largest maker of PCs, fell as low
as $17.29 in extended trading. So far this year the stock had
outperformed the Standard Poor’s 500 Index, which climbed 8.3
percent.

Fourth-quarter net income declined 18 percent to $764
million, or 43 cents a share, from $927 million, or 48 cents, a
year earlier. Sales rose 2 percent to $16 billion, in line with
analysts’ estimates. Excluding some items, earnings will be at
least $2.13 a share this fiscal year, Dell said.

Apple Competition

Sales in the consumer division fell 2 percent last quarter,
evidence that Apple Inc. is winning over buyers with its Mac and
iPad devices. Revenue in the business that caters to governments
slipped 1 percent amid “weakness” in purchasing by U.S.
federal agencies and governments in Western Europe, Dell said.

“When do we see revenue growth for the company start to
show up?” said Abhey Lamba, an analyst at Mizuho Securities USA
Inc. in New York, who initiated coverage of Dell this month with
a “buy” rating. “They’ve been able to grow earnings because
of cost management and supply-chain improvements. But you can do
that for only so long. At a certain point, revenue needs to
start growing or else earnings will come down.”

Dell is suffering from competition with Apple at the high
end of the market and Lenovo Group Inc. and Acer Inc. at the low
end, Shaw Wu, an analyst at Sterne Agee Leach Inc., wrote in a
research note earlier this month. Chief Executive Officer
Michael Dell, who retook the reins of the company in 2007, is
making deals and adding new products in a bid to revive growth
and focus on more profitable areas.

Tight Purse Strings

Consumers are keeping their wallets closed as they cope
with a slow economic recovery, and some are opting for iPads
instead of traditional notebook computers. U.S. PC shipments
declined 4.9 percent last year, the worst performance since
2001, according to research firm IDC.

In addition, last year’s flooding in Thailand crimped disk-
drive production. The supply disruption will continue into the
quarter that ends in October, the company said.

Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 8 operating system, due later
this year, may provide a lift to consumer PC sales, Michael Dell
said yesterday on a conference call with analysts. It also will
entice business customers that want to buy tablets running
Windows, he said. Until now, most tablets have run software from
Apple or Google Inc.

“With Windows 8, there’s great excitement in the corporate
space for us,” Dell said. “There’s pretty strong appetite for
Windows 8 tablets in the enterprise.”

Business Strength

Dell also is selling more of its own data-storage and
networking gear, instead of relying on products made by such
companies as EMC Corp. Business computing demand is “pretty
strong,” Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden said in an
interview. Sales to large corporations rose 5 percent last
quarter, while the unit that sells to small and midsize
businesses got a 6 percent boost, the company said.

Dell and rival Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) are counting on sales of
thin, lightweight laptops called “ultrabooks” to spur sales.
Dell’s new ultrabook, called the XPS 13, starts at $999. It’s
made of aluminum, carbon fiber and glass, sports a 13.3-inch
screen, and will go on sale later this month.

Dell also is diversifying beyond PCs. It bought computer
networking company Force 10 Networks Inc. last August for an
undisclosed price and storage maker Compellent Technologies a
year ago for about $856 million. On Feb. 2, it hired former CA
Inc. CEO John Swainson to head a new software group.

Software Deal?

Dell may be scouting for a software acquisition worth $1
billion to $3 billion, said Peter Misek, an analyst at Jefferies
Co. Misek has a “hold” rating on Dell shares.

Computer and data-management software makers Quest Software
Inc. and CommVault Systems Inc. are possible targets, he said.
BMC Software Inc., which makes tools to manage servers, may be
too large, considering its $6.4 billion market value.

Dell plans to hold a Feb. 27 event in San Francisco with
Michael Dell to discuss its data-center products. The company
will continue to acquire software companies, he said yesterday
on the conference call.

“There’s significant opportunity for us to build a big
business here,” he said.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Aaron Ricadela in San Francisco at
aricadela@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net

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