Dell - page 6

Apple and HP have been rated best for customer experience in a study of 10,000 consumers in the United States carried out by Temkin Group. Apple took the top spot in the computer sector with a rating of 64%, while HP took second place with a rating of 62%.

At the other end of the spectrum sat Sony and Lenovo, which were the lowest-rated computer makers.

Everyone needs a website these days – but not everyone can build one. Those that can – and can do it well – are carving themselves out a nice, lucrative career. Those that aren’t are helping those that are…but you don’t have to be one of them.

If you’ve ever wanted to build your own website but had no idea where or when to get started, we’ve got you covered on both counts here at Cult of Mac Deals.

We’re offering a web developer video course, developed by trainer Mark Lassoff, where he will teach you everything you need to know about web development – and he’s giving you the certification you need to actually make it count. And we’re giving it to you for only $69 – that’s a 65% discount!

Teardown specialists iFixit have published a new tablet repairability guide that quickly tells you how difficult it’s going to be to mend your broken Android, iOS, or Windows 8 slate. The guide features 18 popular tablets, which have been given a repairability score between one and ten. The higher the score, the easier they are to repair.

Unsurprisingly, Apple’s iPads are some of the hardest tablets to fix, second only to the Microsoft Surface Pro — the only tablet with a score of one. Amazon’s Kindle Fire’s, on the other hand, are relatively easy to repair, as are Dell’s devices.

Back in 1997, Michael Dell famously said that if he were Apple, he’d “shut the company down and give the money back to the shareholders.” Now, Dell’s taking at least part of his own advice, having worked out a deal fifteen years later with Microsoft and Silver Lake Partners to buy back his company from shareholders and go private again.

Don’t get too excited, though. It’s not official yet.

Samsung has surpassed Apple as the world’s biggest buyer of semiconductors, according to Gartner. The Korean company’s hugely popular smartphones, such as the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note II, led to a 29% surge in chip purchases in 2012, taking its semiconductor spending past that of any other company.

In the Post-PC era, we’ve seen PC sales steadily decline while consumers embrace tablets. Dell and Acer have suffered huge losses while the PC market contracts, but Apple’s Mac business is actually growing year over year.

Research firm Gartner released their personal computer shipment data for the fourth quarter of 2012 today, and found that while some manufacturers are in decline, a select few have been able to increase their marketshare.

Apple has a reputation of excellent customer service. You can walk into an Apple Store and get your device fixed. You can play with an iMac or iPad in the store for an hour without a salesman trying to push you into buying.

Apple usually dominates customer satisfaction polls for physical retail locations, but their Apple Store website may need some help. Even though Apple is the most popular tech company in the world, in 2012 Apple’s ForeSee satisfaction score actually dropped.

When you just look at the money Apple made in 2012 it’s pretty incredible. But when you provide some context to those earnings and put Apple’s profits next to the competition’s profits, Apple’s performance is absolutely mindboggling.

From October 2011 to September 2012 Apple made more money than Microsoft, Ebay, Google, Yahoo! Facebook and Amazon combined. In that same period, Dell, Asus, Intel, Acer, IBM, Lenovo, and HP (basically the entire PC industry) only made $19.3 billion in profit, which is less than half of Apple’s profit.

Source: Statista

Foxconn CEO Terry Gou has revealed that dealing with Apple’s overwhelming iPhone demand is not an easy task. The company is still struggling to catch up with the strong sales the iPhone has been enjoying, but Gou would not confirm whether the group’s other unit, Foxconn International Holdings, has taken on some of its production.

Foxconn has admitted to finding underage interns as young as 14 working in one of its Chinese plants, where the minimum legal working age is 16. The company, which assembles Apple’s hugely popular iOS devices, has sent all underage workers back to their schools, and it’s now investigating how they were ended up at its plant.

Apple’s iPad, with its sleek aluminum casing, large 9.7-inch display, is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful tablets currently available. But there was a time when it was as thick as a cheap Dell notebook and made from tacky white plastic — as these images of an early iPad prototype prove.

Dell hasn’t had anything resembling success in the tablet market with either businesses or consumers, but that isn’t stopping the company from deriding the iPad and its success.

According to Dell Australia’s managing director Joe Kreme, users only buy iPads because they’re “shiny” and troubleshooting any issue with an iPad or iOS could take up to four days. As a result of these so-called facts, Kreme said that the tablet race hasn’t even started yet.

Apple’s ability to turn over its inventory incredibly quickly is seen as one of the Cupertino company’s greatest strengths. But just how quickly does it sell its products? According to Gartner’s Supply Chain Top 25 league table, Apple clears its entire inventory every 4.9 days. That’s faster than Amazon, Coca-Cola, Dell, and Samsung. In fact, the only company that turns over its inventory quicker is McDonald’s.

There are a long list of advantages that come with owning a Mac, but premium machines come with premium price tags. As such, we’re always on the lookout for fantastic deals on Apple’s latest releases, and we’ve found a terrific one on Craigslist. For just $200, you can pick up a late-2011 13-inch MacBook Pro with a 2.4GHz Core i5 processor and 4GB of RAM.

There’s only one caveat: You’ll have to work around six massive bullet wounds.

Foxconn chief executive Terry Gou has confirmed that Apple will use some of its cash to help improve the labor conditions for more than 1 million workers in Foxconn’s Chinese factories, where devices like the iPhone, iPad, and iPod are assembled.

Apple’s online store delivers one of the most satisfying online retail experiences out there. According to customer experience researchers at ForeSee, only one company delivered a better experience than Apple – Amazon. ForeSee also said that Apple (and Amazon) had achieved what it refers to as “the threshold of excellence.” 

Here’s the most pared-down review I can manage of Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success by Ken Segall.

If you wonder what it was like to work with Steve Jobs: read it. You’ll enjoy it.

Following comments made by Google co-founder Larry Page yesterday, which suggested Steve Jobs’s thermonuclear war against Android was simply “for show” to rally the troops, Walter Isaacson has confirmed that Page is wrong, and he has insisted that Steve’s war against Android was real.

The first reactions by human rights groups to the Fair Labor Association’s independent audit of Foxconn factory working conditions are in, and there is cautious optimism that the widescale abuse of Chinese factory workers may be on the cusp of coming to an end. But that’s only if the rest of the tech industry follows Apple’s lead.

Just a few short weeks ago, Michael Dell announced that his company should no longer be considered a consumer PC and device maker. Dell should now be considered an IT vendor with a focus on enterprise data center products, went the message. The company was going to get out of the device and peripheral business.

What a difference a few weeks can make when it comes to a company’s message. While the tech world focused on today’s launch of Apple’s new iPad, Dell’s chief commercial officer Steve Felice was talking up the company’s ability to challenge the iPad in business environments. Or put more accurately, the ability that Dell will have to challenge the iPad when Windows 8 ships later this year.

Dell attempted today to rebrand itself as an end-to-end enterprise IT vendor amid slowing consumer PC sales. The company appears to be following in the footsteps of IBM, which sold its PC business to Lenovo, and HP, which came close to selling off its personal systems division last summer.

Dell won’t be getting out of the PC business completely, at least not yet. The company will continue to produce its XPS line of computers, which it cites as a success. It will, however, move away from less profitable markets including PC peripherals.

What do you do when you’re sitting on a mountain of cash and have a labor condition crisis that has resulted in terrible PR? Give your employees a couple more dollars and hope that satisfies everyone, duh! Apple’s manufacturing partner, Foxconn Technology Group released a statement today that they have raised the wages of their Chinese workers by 16-25% this month. This is the second time wages have risen for Foxconn employees, but the first pay raise still didn’t resolve criticisms over Apple’s labor conditions.

It seems that lengthy report looking into the poor working conditions in Chinese factories assembling Apple products is going to haunt the Cupertino company for some time yet. The latest backlash comes from consumer group SumOfUs, which has launched a petition calling for Apple to “stop worker abuse,” with over 35,000 signatures collected in just 24 hours.

Apple is one of the best-known brands, so no wonder it paid Google just $18 million in 2011 for search traffic. By comparison, HP and Dell, which are breathing heavy to keep ahead of the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant ranked No. 1 and No. 2 for spending big bucks flogging their products online.

Remember Dell’s Streak tablet? Even though the device was just a blip in the minds of consumers, the PC maker wants to take another whack at going up against the iPad. The company is being coy with details, saying they want to get this attempt right.