I just happened by Dell.com and noticed that the company has dropped the starting price on the Mini 9 netbook to $249. Plus, you can get free two-day shipping until February 12th.

The specs are about as minimal as they get — 512MB of RAM, 4GB SSD, 8.9-inch screen, Ubuntu Linux — but this is a good sign that netbook prices will continue to slide down into price points that’ll truly differentiate them from regular notebooks. If all you need to do is surf the net, $249 for this little Dell isn’t a bad deal at all. Also, the Mini 12’s starting price has been lowered to $399.

After leaving Dell to become chief executive of Lenovo, Bill Amelio is stepping down from his post as CEO. Amelio joined Lenovo to help with the integration of IBM's PC business. The so-called "amicable" departure comes with the announcement of a quarterly loss three-times higher than expected. The US executive has been replaced by Lenovo's Chairman Yang Yuanqing who will continue to live and work from Lenovo's North Carolina office -- Yang's board leadership duties will now be assumed by Lenovo's co-founder, Liu Chuanzhi. That puts Lenovo back into the hands of executive Chinese leadership as it attempts to recapture ground given up to HP and Acer in corporate sales. And with IT bugdets slashed in a bid to keep corporations afloat, the executive changes are meant to accelerate Lenovo's strategy to dominate China's PC market, grow its business into emerging markets (specifically India and Russia), and expand upon its burgeoning sales to individual consumers. Seems like a reasonable move to us.

Stop me if you've heard this one: Dell might go into the smartphone business. OOOLLLDDD? But today the WSJ reports Dell's closer than ever, with prototypes built in two different styles and two competing platforms.

The two styles may seem familiar to you, as demonstrated by my totally fake images above. One, we'll call "iPhone," is described by the Wall Street Journal as "a touchscreen but no physical keyboard." The other, which we'll call "Pre," is a "slider-style phone with a keypad and that slides from beneath the screen." Dell is reportedly exploring both Windows Mobile and Android, and has both operating systems running on its prototypes. The WSJ cites those always helpful "people familiar with the matter," and says the formal move into the phone market could happen as early as February, perhaps just in time for the 3GSM global phone biz show in Barcelona on the 15th.

As I so subtly alluded, Dell has been in the smartphone business, or at least rumored to be, for some time. We heard about an impending smartphone in April 2007, then again in December 2007, solidifying last January before being quickly smashed down again. Just two weeks ago, the rumors surfaced again, as analyst extraordinaire Shaw Wu predicted Dell would do the Android secret handshake, publicly, at 3GSM. So the Journal report confirms these rumors, with solid substantiation. (Let's just hope the "people familiar with the matter" don't all turn out to be Shaw Wu wearing wigs and fake moustaches.) As the Journal states, the most likely peg for this happening soon, and reason for the delay up till now, is that Ron Garriques, former head of the cell business at Motorola, can finally build phones for Dell.

He left the burning building in Libertyville Schaumburg, IL for the greener pastures of Round Rock, TX under a noncompete clause that won't lift until...yep...next month. Garriques and his former Moto crony, John Thode—current head of netbooks and cheap PCs at Dell—are probably planning one heck of a comeback. If the combination of Dell and Motorola DNA doesn't render that completely impossible

Manage Software Purchased with Dell PC or Independently in One Convenient Location Dell recently launched the Dell Download Store, the first online software superstore where consumers and small-and-medium-sized businesses can easily download the most popular software titles and manage volume software licensing requirements. The store builds on Dell’s heritage of value, commitment to the environment and direct customer relationships.

The News:

Dell recently launched the Dell Download Store, the first online software superstore where consumers and small-and-medium-sized businesses can easily download the most popular software titles and manage volume software licensing requirements. Top titles from 12 publishers including Intuit, McAfee, Sonic/Roxio and Microsoft are available for immediate download and management at https://downloadstore.dell.com. Initially available in the United States, the Dell Download Store offers an affordable, easy-to-use, environmentally-friendly solution for the software customers’ need to run their businesses and households. Launching in the United Kingdom, France and Germany Jan. 20, 2009, and ultimately available worldwide, the site will evolve to include music, movies and games. New titles are being added weekly. Using a new feature, customers can also use the store to access software titles purchased with select Dell computers. Rather than receiving CDs and literature in the box, customers can visit the Dell Download Store to view software titles purchased with a PC or independently, instantly download software anytime, and re-install software or create back-up disks for future use. This move adds convenience for customers and helps Dell achieve its green-packaging goals.

Why download?

Dell’s software download services save customers 10 percent or more per software title by eliminating packaging and shipping costs. Volume purchases of five licenses or more provides additional savings. In most parts of the developed world, packaging constitutes as much as one-third of the non-industrial solid waste stream according to the EPA. If the $3B1 worth of software titles purchased by U.S. consumers in 2006 were all digitally downloaded, the positive impact on the environment would be significant. Click here for more details on Dell’s global green-packaging strategies. Choice and convenience. Now customers can get the software they want, when and how they want it.

Why Dell Download Store?

The new Dell.com destination gives the almost one million people visiting the site daily added convenience of downloading the software they need in addition to the products and services they already purchase from Dell. The Dell Locker stores software copies and licenses and allows customers to track and manage all software purchases in one, secure location. Especially for businesses or multi-PC households with more than five users, software license management tools save time and money in license purchasing, fulfillment, auditing and renewal. Combined with the Dell Locker, the Download Manager enables downloads to be fast, secure and convenient by allowing customers to stop and start the download process if necessary without losing their work.


Quotes: “Downloading software, music or movies over the Internet is nothing new, but adding the volume software licensing capability for small-and-medium business customers is a big win, said Geoff Surkamer, general manager, Dell Global Digital Distribution. “In today’s environment, companies are looking everywhere to save money and increase efficiency. The Dell Download Store can help them do both.” “Consumers are very accustomed to downloading music and movies online but many are still buying shrink-wrapped software,” said Geoff Surkamer, general manager, Dell Global Digital Distribution. “Now they can buy the software they need at a lower cost and ultimately manage all their software, music and movies in one convenient location.”

If there was any question that the gap between ultraportables and netbooks is ever-shrinking, Dell's newest model answers in the affirmative. Though it's definitely a netbook (determined by its undersize keyboard and Intel Atom platform), the Dell Inspiron Mini 12 ($524 direct) is the only model of its kind with a 12-inch screen—a compelling size for multitasking. Dell, being the powerhouse that it is, was able to strong-arm Intel (the company that has the firmest grip on the netbook market) into letting it produce such an anomaly. More enticing is that its weight is approximately the same as that of comparable but smaller, 10-inch netbooks like the hp mini 2104 and the msi wind. The Mini 12 isn't without some drawbacks, though. An undersize keyboard and the slow-spinning hard drive are signs that it won't threaten the market for more expensive ultraportables, though the screen alone should rid it of some netbook stereotypes.