Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday, celebrated on December 25, that commemorates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The date of commemoration is not known to be Jesus’ actual birthday, and may have initially been chosen to correspond with either the day exactly nine months after some early Christians believed Jesus had been conceived, a historical Roman festival, or the winter solstice. Christmas is central to the Christmas and holiday season, and in Christianity marks the beginning of the larger season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days.

Although a Christian holiday, Christmas is widely celebrated by many non-Christians, and some of its popular celebratory customs have pre-Christian or secular themes and origins. Popular modern customs of the holiday include gift-giving, music, an exchange of greeting cards, church celebrations, a special meal, and the display of various decorations; including Christmas trees, lights, and garlands, mistletoe, nativity scenes, and holly. In addition, Father Christmas (known as Santa Claus in some areas, including North America, Australia and Ireland) is a popular mythological figure in many countries, associated with the bringing of gifts for children.

Because gift-giving and many other aspects of the Christmas festival involve heightened economic activity among both Christians and non-Christians, the holiday has become a significant event and a key sales period for retailers and businesses. The economic impact of Christmas is a factor that has grown steadily over the past few centuries in many regions of the world.

The word Christmas originated as a compound meaning “Christ’s Mass”. It is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038. “Cristes” is from Greek Christos and “mæsse” is from Latin missa (the holy mass). In Greek, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ, and it, or the similar Roman letter X, has been used as an abbreviation for Christ since the mid-16th century. Hence, Xmas is often used as an abbreviation for Christmas.

Christmas Day is celebrated as a major festival and public holiday in most countries of the world, even in many whose populations are not majority Christian. In some non-Christian countries, periods of former colonial rule introduced the celebration, in others, Christian minorities or foreign cultural influences have led populations to observe the holiday. Major exceptions, where Christmas is not a formal public holiday, include China, (excepting Hong Kong and Macao), Japan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Thailand, Nepal, Iran, Turkey and North Korea.

While most countries celebrate Christmas on December 25 each year, some national churches including those of Russia, Georgia, Egypt, Armenia, the Ukraine and Serbia celebrate on January 7. This is because of their use of the traditional Julian Calendar, under which December 25 falls on January 7 as measured by the standard Gregorian Calendar.

Around the world, Christmas celebrations can vary markedly in form, reflecting differing cultural and national traditions. Countries such as Japan and Korea, where Christmas is popular despite there being only a small number of Christians, have adopted many of the secular aspects of Christmas such as gift-giving, decorations and Christmas trees.

Commemoration of Jesus’ birth
Main articles: Annunciation, Nativity of Jesus, and Child Jesus

Adorazione del Bambino (Adoration of the Child) (1439-43), a mural by Florentine painter Fra Angelico.In Christianity, Christmas is the festival celebrating the Nativity of Jesus, the Christian belief that the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament’s Messianic prophecies was born to the Virgin Mary. The story of Christmas is based on the biblical accounts given in the Gospel of Matthew, namely Matthew 1:18-Matthew 2:12 and the Gospel of Luke, specifically Luke 1:26-Luke 2:40. According to these accounts, Jesus was born to Mary, assisted by her husband Joseph, in the city of Bethlehem. According to popular tradition, the birth took place in a stable, surrounded by farm animals, though neither the stable nor the animals are specifically mentioned in the Biblical accounts. However, a manger is mentioned in Luke 2:7 where it states “She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” Early iconographic representations of the nativity placed the stable and manger within a cave (located, according to tradition, under the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem). Shepherds from the fields surrounding Bethlehem were told of the birth by an angel, and were the first to see the child. Many Christians believe that the birth of Jesus fulfilled messianic prophecies from the Old Testament. The gospel of Matthew also describes a visit by several Magi, or astrologers, who bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the infant. The visitors were said to be following a mysterious star, commonly known as the Star of Bethlehem, believing it to announce the birth of a king of the Jews. The commemoration of this visit, the Feast of Epiphany, is the formal end of the Christmas season.

Christians celebrate Christmas in many ways. In addition to this day being one of the most important and popular for the attendance of church services, there are numerous other devotions and popular traditions. Prior to Christmas Day, the Eastern Orthodox Church practices the Nativity Fast in anticipation of the birth of Jesus, while much of the Western Church celebrates Advent. The final preparations for Christmas are made on Christmas Eve. Over the Christmas period people decorate their homes and exchange gifts. In some Christian denominations, children perform plays re-telling the events of the Nativity, or sing carols that reference the event. Some Christians also display a small re-creation of the Nativity, known as a Nativity scene or crib, in their homes, using figurines to portray the key characters of the event. Live Nativity scenes and tableaux vivants are also performed, using actors and live animals to portray the event with more realism.

There is a very long tradition of producing painted depictions of the nativity in art. Nativity scenes are traditionally set in a barn or stable and include Mary, Joseph, the child Jesus, angels, shepherds and the Three Wise Men, Balthazar, Melchior, and Caspar, who are said to have followed a star, known as the Star of Bethlehem, and arrive after his birth.

Varied traditions
Even in countries where there is a strong Christian tradition, Christmas celebrations can vary markedly from country to country. For many Christians, a religious service plays an important part in the recognition of the season. And Christmas, along with Easter, is the period of highest annual church attendance. In many Catholic countries, religious processions are held in the days preceding Christmas. In other countries, secular processions, featuring Santa Claus and other seasonal figures are often held. Family reunions and the exchange of gifts are a widespread feature of the season. Gift giving takes place on Christmas Day itself in most countries. However December 6, Saint Nicholas Day, and January 6, Epiphany are more popularly observed as gift-giving days in some countries. A special Christmas family meal is an important part of the celebration for many, but what is actually served can vary greatly from country to country. In England, and countries influenced by its traditions, a standard Christmas meal would include turkey, potatoes, vegetables, sausages and gravy, followed by Christmas pudding or mince pies. In Poland and other parts of eastern Europe and Scandinavia, fish often provides the traditional main course, but richer meat such as lamb is increasingly served. Ham is the main meal in the Philippines, while in Germany, France and Austria, goose and pork are favored. Beef, ham and chicken in various recipes are popular throughout the world. The eating of sweets and chocolates has become popular worldwide, and sweeter Christmas delicacies include the German stollen marzipan cake, and Jamaican rum fruit cake.

Dell grew during the 1980s and 1990s to become (for a time) the largest seller of PCs and servers. As of 2008 it held the second spot in computer-sales within the industry behind HP. The company currently sells personal computers, servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, and computer peripherals. Dell also sells HDTVs that are manufactured by other brands.

In 2006, Fortune magazine ranked Dell as the 25th-largest company in the Fortune 500 list, 8th on its annual “Top 20″ list of the most-admired companies in the United States. In 2007 Dell ranked 34th and 8th respectively on the equivalent lists for the year. A 2006 publication identified Dell as one of 38 high-performance companies in the S&P 500 which had consistently out-performed the market over the previous 15 years.

Background and origins
While a student at the University of Texas at Austin in 1984, Michael Dell founded the company as PC’s Limited with capital of $1000. Operating from Michael Dell’s off-campus dorm-room at Dobie Center , the startup aimed to sell IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock components. Michael Dell started trading in the belief that by selling personal computer-systems directly to customers, PC’s Limited could better understand customers’ needs and provide the most effective computing solutions to meet those needs.[citation needed] Michael Dell dropped out of school in order to focus full-time on his fledgling business, after getting about $300,000 in expansion-capital from his family.

In 1985, the company produced the first computer of its own design — the “Turbo PC”, sold for US$795 — which contained an Intel 8088-compatible processor running at a speed of 8 MHz. PC’s Limited advertised the systems in national computer-magazines for sale directly to consumers, and custom-assembled each ordered unit according to a selection of options. This offered buyers prices lower than those of retail brands, but with greater convenience than assembling the components themselves. Although not the first company to use this model, PC’s Limited became one of the first to succeed with it. The company grossed more than $73 million in its first year of trading.

The company changed its name to “Dell Computer Corporation” in 1988. In 1989, Dell Computer set up its first on-site-service programs in order to compensate for the lack of local retailers prepared to act as service centers. Also in 1987, the company set up its first operations in Ireland; eleven more international operations followed within the next four years. In June 1988, Dell’s market capitalization grew by $30 million to $80 million from its June 22 initial public offering of 3.5 million shares at $8.50 a share. In 1990, Dell Computer Corporation tried selling its products indirectly through warehouse clubs and computer superstores, but met with little success, and the company re-focused on its more successful direct-to-consumer sales model. In 1992, Fortune magazine included Dell Computer Corporation in its list of the world’s 500 largest companies.

In 1994, when Dell celebrated 10 years, Dell changed its logo to the current version.

In 1996, Dell began selling computers via its web site.

In 1999, Dell overtook Compaq to become the largest seller of personal computers in the United States with $25 billion in revenue reported in January 2000.

In 2002, Dell attempted to expand by tapping into the multimedia and home-entertainment markets with the introduction of televisions, handhelds, and digital audio players. Dell has also produced Dell-brand printers for home and small-office use.

In 2003, at the annual company meeting, the stockholders approved changing the company name to “Dell Inc.” to recognize the company’s expansion beyond computers.

In 2004, the company announced that it would build a new assembly-plant near Winston-Salem, North Carolina; the city and county provided Dell with $37.2 million in incentive packages; the state provided approximately $250 million in incentives and tax breaks. In July, Michael Dell stepped aside as Chief Executive Officer while retaining his position as Chairman of the Board. Kevin Rollins, who had held a number of executive posts at Dell, became the new CEO.

In 2005, the share of sales coming from international markets increased, as revealed in the company’s press releases for the first two quarters of its fiscal 2005 year. In February 2005 Dell appeared in first place in a ranking of the “Most Admired Companies” published by Fortune magazine. In November 2005 BusinessWeek magazine published an article titled “It’s Bad to Worse at Dell” about shortfalls in projected earnings and sales, with a worse-than-predicted third-quarter financial performance — a bad omen for a company that had routinely underestimated its earnings. Dell acknowledged that faulty capacitors on the motherboards of the Optiplex GX270 and GX280 had already cost the company $300 million. The CEO, Kevin Rollins, attributed the bad performance partially to Dell’s focus on low-end PCs.

In 2006, Dell purchased the computer hardware manufacturer Alienware. Dell Inc.’s plan anticipated Alienware continuing to operate independently under its existing management. Alienware expected to benefit from Dell’s efficient manufacturing system.

On January 31, 2007, Kevin B. Rollins, CEO of the company since 2004, resigned as both CEO and as a director, and Michael Dell resumed his former role as CEO. Investors and many shareholders had called for Rollins’ resignation because of poor company performance. At the same time, the company announced that, for the fourth time in five quarters, earnings would fail to reach consensus analyst-estimates.

In February 2007 Dell became the subject of formal investigations by the US SEC and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.[9] The company has not formally filed financial reports for either the third or fourth fiscal quarter of 2006, and several class-action lawsuits[10] have arisen in the wake of its recent[update] financial performance. Dell Inc’s lack of formal financial disclosure would normally subject the company to de-listing from the NASDAQ,[11] but the exchange has granted Dell a waiver, allowing the stock to trade normally.[12]

On March 1, 2007, the company issued a preliminary quarterly earnings report which showed gross sales of $14.4 billion, down 5% year-over-year, and net income of $687 million (30 cents per share), down 33%. Net earnings would have declined even more if not for the effects of eliminated employee bonuses, which accounted for six cents per share. NASDAQ extended the company’s deadline for filing financials to May 4.[13]

Dell and AMD
When Dell acquired Alienware early in 2006, some Alienware systems had AMD chips. On August 17, 2006, a Dell press-release stated that starting in September [14], Dell Dimension desktop computers would have AMD processors and that later in the year Dell would release a two-socket, quad-processor server using AMD Opteron chips, moving away from Dell’s tradition of only offering Intel processors in their PCs.

CNet’s News.com on August 17, 2006 cited Dell’s CEO Kevin Rollins as attributing the move to AMD processors to cost-advantage and to AMD technology[15]. AMD’s senior VP in commercial business, Marty Seyer, stated: “Dell’s wider embrace of AMD processor-based offerings is a win for Dell, for the industry and most importantly for Dell customers.”

On October 23, 2006, Dell announced new AMD-based servers — the PowerEdge 6950 and the PowerEdge SC1435.

On November 1, 2006, Dell’s website began offering notebooks with AMD processors (the Inspiron 1501 with a 15.4-inch (390 mm) display) with the choice of a single-core MK-36 processor[16], dual-core Turion X2 chips or Mobile Sempron.

Dell and desktop Linux

First attempt (2000)
In 1998 Ralph Nader asked Dell (and five other major OEMs) to offer alternate operating systems to Microsoft Windows, specifically including Linux, for which “there is clearly a growing interest”[17][18] Possibly coincidentally, Dell started offering Linux notebook systems which “cost no more than their Windows 98 counterparts” in 2000,[19] and soon expanded, with Dell becoming “the first major manufacturer to offer Linux across its full product line”[20] However, by early 2001 Dell had “disbanded its Linux business unit.”[21]

The reason(s) for such a quick reversal remain the subject of debate. Court documents accused Microsoft of coercing OEMs to drop Linux:

Microsoft executive Joachim Kempin described his plan of retaliation and coercion to shut down competition from Linux: “I am thinking of hitting the OEM harder than in the past with anti-Linux actions” and will “further try to restrict source code deliveries where possible and be less gracious when interpreting agreements — again without being obvious about it,” continuing “this will be a delicate dance”[22]

While in a 2003 interview Michael Dell denied that Microsoft pressured Dell Inc. into doing an about-face with regard to desktop Linux, citing a lack of sales: “unfortunately the desktop Linux market didn’t develop in volume. It’s more of a server opportunity” but adding: “We continue to offer Linux on the desktop and there is nothing else to say.”[23] However, a 2004 report noted that Dell no longer offered pre-installed desktop Linux:

So what does it mean “factory installed Linux”? If you want Dell to install Linux for you, first add on $119. But here is the annoying part. They won’t send you a computer with Linux pre-installed. They sell you the computer and the boxes of software on the side, and then they make an appointment to send you someone who comes to your house or business and installs it there.[24]

Ubuntu on Dell systems

Dell has supplied Ubuntu on some of its computers since 2007On February 26, 2007 Dell announced that it had commenced a program to sell and distribute a range of computers with pre-installed Linux distributions as an alternative to Microsoft Windows. Dell indicated that Novell’s SUSE Linux would appear first.[25] However, Dell on February 27, 2007 announced that its previous announcement related to certifying the hardware as ready to work with Novell SUSE Linux and that it (Dell) had no plans to sell systems pre-installed with Linux in the near future.[26] On March 28, 2007, Dell announced that it would begin shipping some desktops and laptops with Linux pre-installed, although it did not specify which distribution of Linux or which hardware would lead.[27] On April 18, 2007 a report appeared suggesting that Michael Dell used Ubuntu on one of his home systems.[28] On May 1, 2007, Dell announced it would ship the Ubuntu Linux distribution.[29] On May 24, 2007, Dell started selling models with Ubuntu Linux 7.04 pre-installed: a laptop, a budget computer, and a high-end PC.[30]

On June 27, 2007, Dell announced on its Direct2Dell blog that it planned to offer more pre-loaded systems (the new Dell Inspiron desktops and laptops). After the IdeaStorm site supported extending the bundles beyond the US market, Dell later announced more international marketing.[31] On August 7, 2007, Dell officially announced that it would offer one notebook and one desktop in the UK, France and Germany with Ubuntu “pre-installed”. At LinuxWorld 2007 Dell announced plans to provide Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop on selected models in China, “factory-installed”.[32] On November 30, 2007 Dell reported shipping 40,000 Ubuntu PCs.[33] On January 24, 2008 Dell in Germany, Spain, UK and France launched a second laptop, a XPS M1330 with Ubuntu 7.10, for 849 euro or GBP 599 upwards.[34] On February 18, 2008, Dell announced that the Inspiron 1525 would have Ubuntu as an optional operating system. On February 22, 2008 Dell announced plans to sell Ubuntu in Canada and in Latin America[35] From September 16, 2008, Dell has shipped both Dell Ubuntu Netbook Remix and Windows XP Home versions of the Inspiron Mini 9 and the Inspiron Mini 12. At the present time, the Inspiron Mini 9 and the Inspiron Mini 12 laptops are being shipped with ubuntu 8.04 version. It is expected in the future that Dell will offer ubuntu 8.10 on the mini 9 and mini 12.

Personnel
On January 31, 2007 Michael Dell returned to the company as CEO. As chairman of the board, Mr. Dell had significant input into the company’s operations during Rollins’ years as CEO. However with the return of Michael Dell as CEO, the company saw immediate changes in operations, the exodus of many senior vice-presidents and new personnel brought in from outside the company.

Departures announced include:

Kevin Rollins, CEO[36]
James Schneider, CFO[36]
John Medica, senior vice president, consumer products[37]
Joe Marengi, senior vice president, Americas[37]
John Hamlin, senior vice president, worldwide online operations[38]
Paul McKinnon, senior vice president, human resources[37]
Rosenda Parra, senior vice president/general manager, home and small business group[39]
Glenn E. Neland, senior vice president, procurement[40]
Additions announced include:

Michael Dell, CEO and co-Chairman of the Board (previously Chairman of the Board)
Don Carty, CFO and co-Chairman of the Board (previously Board member)
Michael R. Cannon, former CEO of Solectron, as President, Global Operations[41]
Ron Garriques, who formerly headed Motorola’s mobile phone unit, as President, Global Consumer Group[42]
Stephen F. Schuckenbrock, Senior Vice President, Global Services[40]
Mr. Dell announced a number of initiatives and plans (part of the “Dell 2.0″ initiative) to improve the company’s financial performance. These include:

elimination of 2006 bonuses for employees with some discretionary awards
reduction in the number of managers reporting directly to Mr. Dell from 20 to 12
in a noted departure from previous years, “build, partner, and buy” to increase services capabilities
reduction of “bureaucracy”
On April 23, 2008, Dell announced the closure of one of its biggest Canadian call-centers in Kanata, Ontario — terminating approximately 1100 employees, with 500 of those redundancies effective on the spot, and with the official closure of the center scheduled for the summer. The call-center had opened in 2006 after the city of Ottawa won a bid to host it. Less then a year later, Dell Inc planned to double its workforce to nearly 3,000 workers and to add a new building. Journalists cited a high Canadian dollar and suggested high pay-rates as among the reasons for the cuts. [43] The company had also announced the shutdown of its Edmonton, Alberta office, losing 900 jobs. In total, Dell announced the ending of about 8,800 jobs in 2007-2008 — 10% of its workforce.[44] On January 8 2009 Dell announced the closure of its manufacturing plant in Limerick, Ireland with the loss of 1,900 jobs and the transfer of production to its plant in Poland.

Products

Scope and brands
The corporation markets specific brand names to different market segments:

Business/Corporate Class: including OptiPlex, Latitude, and Precision, where the company’s advertising emphasizes long life-cycles, reliability and serviceability:
OptiPlex – office desktop computer systems
Vostro – office/small business desktop and notebook systems
n Series – desktop and notebook computers shipped with Linux or FreeDOS installed
Latitude – commercially-focused notebooks
Precision – workstation systems and high-performance notebooks. (Some of them including Linux pre-installed.[45])
PowerEdge – business servers
PowerVault – direct-attach and some network-attached storage (NAS)
PowerConnect – network switches
Dell/EMC – storage area networks (SANs)
EqualLogic – enterprise class iSCSI SANs
Home Office/Consumer Class: including Inspiron and XPS brands, emphasizing value, performance and expandability:
Dimension (Discontinued) – Consumer desktop systems.
Inspiron – consumer desktop and notebook systems
Studio – medium-end consumer slim hybrid desktop and laptop systems
XPS – enthusiast and high-performance desktop and notebook systems
Studio XPS – high end design focus of XPS systems and extreme multimedia capability
Alienware (XPS Extreme) – high-performance gaming systems rivaling HP’s gaming division,VoodooPC
Adamo – high-end laptop brand to compete with the MacBook Air
Peripherals: Dell has also diversified its product line to include peripheral products such as USB keydrives, LCD televisions, and printers.
Dell monitors LCD TVs, plasma TVs and projectors for HDTV and monitors
Services and support:
Dell On Call – extended support services (mainly for the removal of spyware and computer viruses)
Dell Support Center – extended support services (similar to “Dell On Call”) for customers in the EMEA. The Solution Centers also support hardware for customers outside of warranty.
Dell Business Support – a commercial service-contract that provides an industry-certified technician with a lower call-volume than in normal queues; it covers hardware- and some software-support.
Dell Everdream Desktop Management “Software as a Service” remote desktop management. Lyndon Rive, Elon Musk and other partners sold Everdream to Dell.
Your Tech Team – a new[update] support-queue available to home users who purchased their systems through either Dell’s website or Dell phone-centers. These customers gain access to a specialized queue currently[update] located in Tampa, Florida, and Chilliwack, BC, Canada. Customers can request a technician with whom they have worked previously, and the technicians can troubleshoot a wider range of problems — including some that would fall under the “Dell on Call” category. Data backup and virus removal remain out-of-scope for this queue.
Dell also offers Red Hat and SUSE Linux for servers; as well as “bare-bones” computers without pre-installed software (available on n Series by default and by request on XPS and Inspiron systems) at significantly lower prices. Due to Dell’s licensing contract with Microsoft, Dell allegedly[citation needed] cannot offer those systems on their website and customers have to request them explicitly. (Dell does offer those systems on their web site at http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/precn_n?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&redirect=1 ). Dell has to ship such systems with a FreeDOS disk included in the box and must issue a so-called “Windows refund” or a merchandise credit after sale of the system at the “regular” retail price.

Discontinued products/brands:
Axim – PDAs using Microsoft’s Windows Mobile (discontinued on April 9, 2007[46])
Dimension – home and “small office, home office” desktop computers (discontinued July 2007; replaced by Inspiron and Vostro desktops)
Dell Digital Jukebox – MP3 players (discontinued August 2006)
Dell PowerApp – application-based severs
Dell Omniplex – 486- and Pentium-based desktop and tower computers previously supported to run server and desktop operating systems.

Manufacturing
In the 1980s Dell became a pioneer in the “configure to order” approach to manufacturing – delivering individual PCs configured to customer specifications. In contrast, most PC manufacturers in those times delivered large orders to intermediaries on a quarterly basis.[47]

To minimize the delay between purchase and delivery, Dell has a general policy of manufacturing its products close to its customers. This also allows for implementing a just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing approach, which minimizes inventory costs. Low inventory is another signature of the Dell business model – a critical consideration in an industry where components depreciate very rapidly.[48]

Dell’s manufacturing process covers assembly, software installation, functional testing (including “burn-in”), and quality control. Throughout most of the company’s history, Dell manufactured desktop machines in-house and contracted out manufacturing of base notebooks for configuration in-house.[49] However, the company’s approach appears to have started to change. The 2006 Annual Report states “we are continuing to expand our use of original design manufacturing partnerships and manufacturing outsourcing relationships.” The Wall Street Journal reported in September, 2008 that “Dell has approached contract computer manufacturers with offers to sell” their plants.[50]

Assembly of desktop computers for the North American market takes place at Dell plants in Austin, Texas (original location), Lebanon TN and Nashville, Tennessee (opened in 1999), Winston-Salem NC (opened in 2005) and at the Miami, Florida facility of its Alienware subsidiary. Dell servers come from Austin TX.

Dell assembles computers for the EMEA market at Limerick in the Republic of Ireland, and employs about 4,500 people in that country. Production at the Limerick facility will cease in 2009 and will be relocated to facilities in Poland and Asia. European Manufacturing Facility 1 (EMF1, opened in 1990) and EMF3 form part of the Raheen Industrial Estate near Limerick. EMF2 (previously a Wang facility, later occupied by Flextronics, situated in Castletroy) closed in 2002,[citation needed] and Dell Inc has consolidated production into EMF3 (EMF1 now contains only offices[51]). Dell’s Alienware subsidiary also manufactures PCs in an Athlone, Ireland plant. Construction of EMF4 in Łódź, Poland has started[update]: Dell started production there in autumn 2007.[52]

Dell opened plants in Penang, Malaysia in 1995, and in Xiamen, China in 1999. These facilities serve the Asian market and assemble 95% of Dell notebooks. Dell Inc has invested an estimated (U.S.) $60 million in a new manufacturing unit in Chennai, India, to support the sales of its products in the Indian subcontinent. Indian-made products will bear the “Made in India” mark. In 2007 the Chennai facility had the target of producing 400,000 desktop PCs, and plans envisaged it starting to produce notebook PCs and other products in the second half of 2007.[citation needed]

Dell moved desktop and PowerEdge server manufacturing for the South American market from the Eldorado do Sul plant opened in 1999, to a new plant in Hortolandia, Brazil in 2007.[53]

Dell began manufacturing in Limerick in 1991 and went on to become Ireland’s largest exporter of goods and second largest company and foreign investor. On the 8th of January 2009, Dell announced that they will withdraw all manufacturing from Limerick and move it to its new plant in the Polish city of Lodz by January 2010.[54] European Union officials said they would investigate a €52.7million aid package the Polish Government used to attract Dell away from Ireland.[55]

Dell’s Plants
Austin, Texas, USA
Penang, Malaysia since 1995
Xiamen, China since 1999
Chennai, India since 2007, 400,000 PCs p.a. [56]
Brazil
Poland

Technical support
Dell routes technical support queries according to component-type and to the level of support purchased. Dell Inc brands its service agreements at five levels for their business customers:[57]

Basic support provides business-hours telephone support and next business-day on-site support.
Silver support provides 24×7 telephone support and 4-hour on-site support after telephone-based troubleshooting.
Gold support provides additional benefits over and above Silver support, including: customer-declared severity; priority access to support; expedited escalation of support; 4-hour on-site support in parallel with telephone-support.
Platinum Plus support provides additional benefits to Gold Support, including: performance benchmarking; real-time tracking; custom planning and reporting; a dedicated technical account-manager.
2-hour on-site support, offered in some cities: mostly limited to major metropolitan areas.
Dell’s Consumer division offers 24×7 phone based and online troubleshooting rather than only during business hours. Gold Technical support is not offered for customers purchasing through the consumer department, and neither is Same-Day Onsite response.

On February 4, 2008 Dell launched a revamped services-and-support scheme for businesses named “ProSupport”, offering customers more options to tailor services to fit their needs. Rather than take a one-size-fits-all approach, Dell has put together packages of options for each category of its customers: small and medium-sized businesses, large businesses, government, education, and health-care- and life-sciences.

Dell now offers separate support options for IT staff and for non-IT professionals. For the latter, the company offers “how-to” support for software applications, such as Microsoft Office. Dell also offers collaborative support with many third-party software vendors. For IT departments, Dell offers “fast-track dispatch” of parts and labor and access to a crisis-center to handle major outages, virus-attacks, or problems caused by natural disasters.

Besides offering response-options for handling problems, Dell has launched “Proactive Maintenance”, which offers assessment and recommendations for updating drivers and firmware and for the application of customer-approved patches and system-updates. Dell also offers assessment-services for storage area networks, as well as for Dell’s computing hardware.

The new offerings replace Dell’s tiered services-structure in which customers could choose from a variety of service levels, such as platinum, gold, or silver. The latest system takes a more customizable approach to support.

Service Tags
Dell associates a Service Tag, a unique alpha-numeric identifier, with most of its products, which resembles a serial number. The Service Tag number, represented in base 36, has a length of five or seven characters. Software can read the Service Tag in a computer’s DMI table. Monitors bought as part of a computer system get support via the Service Tag of the computer. Monitors bought separately get support via the Dell Order Number or via the monitor’s serial number.

Dell links its Service Tags to Express Service Codes, usually found together with the service tag on a sticker physically attached to a system. Computer-owners can usually find this tag on the bottom of laptops; or on the side or on the back of the computer tower of desktops. The Express Service Code, a purely numerical conversion of the service tag, serves for use in Dell’s trunkline for routing a customer to the appropriate phone-technician. Dell’s technical support for consumers requires the customer to enter in their Express Service Code into their touch-tone phone and if they do not provide it when prompted customers will experience increased hold-time before reaching a support-representative.

DellConnect
The DellConnect program, a remote-access tool, gives technicians within Dell Support the ability to access customer computers from a remote location for troubleshooting purposes. By using this tool, support technicians can analyze the configuration of a computer system, view and edit its files and software environment, view and comment on the screen, or take control of the computer system (with the customer’s approval) to carry out troubleshooting.

As of 2007 Dell Inc replaced its proprietary remote-access tool with the newer DellConnect 2.0 manufactured by Citrix — a Dell-branded GoToAssist. After reaching the website, customers simply run this software, which can permit a support technician to view and work on their computer from a remote location; including the ability to reboot the computer remotely and continuing the same session, to share clipboards, and to redirect customers to a specific website.

World-wide technical support
For the Americas, Dell’s Customer Contact Centers is redirected to India. Enterprise customer support lines are still being supported in the United States.

In the Asia-Pacific region Dell provides customer support from Pasay City and Quezon City, Philippines; Cyberjaya and Penang, Malaysia[58]; and Xiamen and Dalian, China.

In India, Dell has customer support centers in the northern cities of Gurgaon and Mohali; and in the southern cities of Hyderabad and Bangalore.[citation needed]

On January 31, 2008 Dell announced that it would close its call center in Edmonton, Alberta effective May 2, 2008, laying off over 900 workers and abandoning the sweetheart-deal it had agreed to with the city of Edmonton.[citation needed] The company planned to close the Ottawa center in July 2008,[citation needed] leaving no support centers in Canada.[citation needed]

On October 15, Dell sold its Dell El Salvador facilities to Stream Global Services to continue providing support to Spanish-speaking US Customers and also Latin American customers.[59]

In 2006 The New York Times published a review of the company’s situation in an article by David Pogue. Pogue lamented the difficulties customers face when attempting to reach tech-support by phone. “When you are ready to MAKE THE CALL”, he wrote, “go to the bathroom, take an aspirin, get a book or crossword, stock up on water and nibbles (preferably ones with high sugar content and no nutritional value; Twinkies are good)”.[60]

On March 21, 2009 Dell announced that it was selling its Pasay call center at SM Mall of Asia to Teleperformance for an undisclosed amount in a bid to “increase the efficiency of its business and provide better value for customers”. The site still provides the same support for Dell, but under Teleperformance management.

Commercial aspects

Traditional business-model
Traditionally, Dell has sold all its products — whether to end-use consumers or to corporate customers — using a direct-sales model via the Internet and the telephone-network. Dell maintains a negative cash conversion cycle (CCC) through use of this model: in other words, Dell Inc. receives payment for the products before it has to pay for the materials. Dell also practises just-in-time (JIT) inventory-management, profiting from its attendant benefits. Dell’s JIT approach utilizes the “pull” system by building computers only after customers place orders and by requesting materials from suppliers as needed. In this way Dell mirrors Toyota by following Toyota Way Principle #3 (“Use ‘pull’ systems to avoid overproduction”). Since the days of the original dominance of telephone-ordering, the Internet has significantly enhanced Dell’s business model, making it easier for customers and potential customers to contact Dell directly. This model also has enabled Dell to provide very customizable systems at an affordable rate, since Dell’s manufacturing arm builds specifically for each customer. Other computer-manufacturers, including Gateway and Hewlett-Packard, have attempted to adapt[citation needed] similar business-models, but due to timing and/or retail-channel pressures[citation needed] they have not achieved the same results as Dell.

A Dell executive writes[61]:

Analysts say : They (Dell) have a negative 45 days CCC, which means that their sales are converted in hard cash 45 days BEFORE the sale.

I say : They have a negative 45 days CCC, which means that their sales are converted in hard cash 45 days BEFORE Dell needs to pay for purchase invoices to vendors.

Dell has also sold at retail, as explained in the “Marketing” section of this article.

Organization
A board of directors of nine people runs the company. Michael Dell, the founder of the company, serves on the board. Other board members include Don Carty, William Gray, Judy Lewent, Klaus Luft, Alex Mandl, Michael A. Miles, and Sam Nunn. Shareholders elect the nine board members at meetings, and those board members who do not get a majority of votes must submit a resignation to the board, which will subsequently choose whether or not to accept the resignation. The board of directors usually sets up five committees which have oversight over specific matters. These committees include the Audit Committee, which handles accounting issues, including auditing and reporting; the Compensation Committee, which approves compensation for the CEO and other employees of the company; the Finance Committee, which handles financial matters such as proposed mergers and acquisitions; the Governance and Nominating Committee, which handles various corporate matters (including nomination of the board); and the Antitrust Compliance Committee, which attempts to prevent company practices from violating antitrust laws.

The corporate structure and management of Dell extends beyond the board of directors. The Dell Global Executive Management Committee sets the strategic direction for how the corporation keeps customers at the forefront, from designing and manufacturing computer systems to offering products that meet customers’ requirements to providing sufficient service and support. Dell has regional senior vice presidents for countries other than the United States, including David Marmonti for EMEA and Stephen J. Felice for Asia/Japan. As of 2007[update], other officers included Martin Garvin (senior vice president for worldwide procurement) and Susan E. Sheskey (vice president and chief information officer).

Marketing
Dell advertisements have appeared in several types of media including television, the Internet, magazines, catalogs and newspapers. Some of Dell Inc’s marketing strategies include lowering prices at all times of the year, offering free bonus products (such as Dell printers), and offering free shipping in order to encourage more sales and to stave off competitors. In 2006, Dell cut its prices in an effort to maintain its 19.2% market share. However, this also cut profit-margins by more than half, from 8.7 to 4.3 percent. To maintain its low prices, Dell continues to accept most purchases of its products via the Internet and through the telephone network, and to move its customer-care division to India and El Salvador.[62]

A popular United States television and print ad campaign in the early 2000s featured the actor Ben Curtis playing the part of “Steven”, a lightly mischievous blond-haired kid who came to the assistance of bereft computer purchasers. Each television advertisement usually ended with Steven’s catch-phrase: “Dude, you’re gettin’ a Dell!”

A subsequent advertising campaign featured interns at Dell headquarters (with Curtis’ character appearing in a small cameo at the end of one of the first commercials in this particular campaign).Michael Dell visited India in 2008.

A Dell advertising campaign for the XPS line of gaming computers featured in print in the September 2006 issue of Wired. It used as a tagline the common term in Internet and gamer slang: “FTW”, meaning “For The Win”. However, Dell Inc. soon dropped the campaign.

In the first-person shooter game F.E.A.R. Extraction Point, several computers visible on desks within the game have recognizable Dell XPS model characteristics, sometimes even including the Dell logo on the monitors.

In 2007 Dell switched advertising agencies in the US from BBDO to Mother.[citation needed] In July 2007, Dell released new advertising created by Mother to support the Inspiron and XPS lines. The ads featured music from the Flaming Lips and Devo who re-formed especially to record the song in the ad “Work it Out”.

Criticisms of Dell’s Laptop Security Marketing
Recently[update] Dell has received a lot of press coverage over its claim of having the world’s most secure notebooks, specifically, its Latitude D630 and Latitude D830. [63][64][65]

According to a National Advertising Division (NAD) report released in late June 2008, Dell did not have enough evidence to support its claim as maker of the “world’s most secure laptops” [66] within its marketing campaign. Lenovo filed the complaint to NAD accusing Dell of making unverified claims. [65]

Most of the criticism made by NAD relates to data encryption, both disk-encryption software and disk-encryption hardware, used in Dell’s commercial notebooks. Dell uses hardware-based full disk encryption and software-based full disk encryption from third-party vendors such as Seagate Technology.[65]

“Although NAD determined that the advertiser could truthfully advertise its position as the first in the industry to combine these particular third-party components in creating secure systems for large businesses, NAD observed the distinction between the security provided to the individual computers and the security provided to a large network of computers.” “Since not all of the components of the FDE Encryption Solution are equally relevant for all sizes of business, NAD recommended the advertiser make this distinction to the extent it intends to make broad security claims.” “On the basis of the evidence in the record, NAD determined that advertiser demonstrated that it offered features of computer security that were both unique and meaningful to consumers.”

The market expects laptops with full disk encryption to have data-at-rest (DAR) protection, but they remain vulnerable to cold boot attack, a type of side-channel attack, which takes advantage of data remanence[67][68] “However, it also determined that the broad claim “World’s Most Secure” was not adequately supported and was appropriately discontinued.”[65]

Dell voluntarily discontinued the “world’s most secured laptops” advertisement after the announcement of the NAD investigation.

Dell’s original claim[66] included:

“The industry-first solution delivers improved performance versus software-based encryption and automated compliance reports so customers are confident that encryption is enabled.” “‘Dell is at the forefront of laptop security because it ranks as a top concern for customers in an environment where more data is produced by an increasingly mobile work force,’ said Margaret Franco, director, Dell Product Group. ‘The industry-first solution we’re announcing today adds to our multi-pronged approach to security that delivers an ironclad assurance of protection.’”

Dell kiosks

Dell Direct Store, Brisbane, QueenslandStarting in 2002, Dell opened kiosk locations in shopping malls across the United States in order to give personal service to customers who preferred this method of shopping to using the Internet or the telephone-system. Despite the added expense, prices at the kiosks match or beat prices available through other retail channels. Starting in 2005, Dell expanded kiosk locations to include shopping malls across Australia, Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong.

On January 30 2008 Dell shut down all 140 kiosks in the US due to expansion into retail stores such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Staples.all over the world .

Dell stores in the United States
In 2006 Dell Inc. opened one full store, 3,000-square-foot (280 m2) in area, at NorthPark Center in Dallas, Texas. It operates the retail outlet seven days a week to display about 36 models, including PCs and televisions. As at the kiosks, customers can only see demonstration-computers and place orders through agents. Dell then delivers purchased items just as if the customer had placed the order by phone or over the Internet.

Dell Inc planned to use the Dallas store to house about three times as many products as it displayed in more than 160 kiosks in malls and airports.[citation needed] In addition to showcasing products, the stores also support on-site warranties and non-warranty service (“Dell on Call”). Services offered include repairing computer video-cards and removing spyware from hard drives.

On February 14, 2008, Dell closed the Service Center in its Dallas NorthPark store and laid off all the technical staff there.

Dell Partner Program
In late 2007 Dell Inc announced[citation needed] that it planned to expand its program to value-added resellers (VARs), giving it the official name of “Dell Partner Direct” and a new website [2]. Dell Inc realized[citation needed] that this program, once a small factor in Dell Inc sales, had become a growing sector of its business and it desired[citation needed] to leverage this growing outlet for its products. It promised VARs who joined this program increased discounts on product and the ability to use the Dell name and logo in their marketing efforts. ConnectU became an early member[citation needed] of the program.

The overall success of this program — as a new development for Dell Inc — remains unclear[citation needed].

Retail in the United States
In the early 1990s Dell also sold its products through Best Buy, Costco and Sam’s Club stores in the United States. Dell stopped this practice in 1994, citing low profit-margins on the business. In 2003, Dell briefly sold products in Sears stores in the U.S. In 2007, Dell started shipping its products to major retailers in the U.S. once again, starting with Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart. Staples, the largest office-supply retailer in the U.S., and Best Buy, the largest electronics retailer in the U.S., became Dell retail partners later that same year.

Retail in Canada
As of the end of February 2008[update], Dell products shipped to one of the largest office-supply retailers in Canada, Staples Business Depot. In April 2008, Future Shop and Best Buy began carrying a sub-set of Dell products, such as certain desktops, laptops and monitors.

Direct retail in Eastern Europe and Russia
Since some shoppers in certain markets show reluctance to purchase technological products through the phone or the Internet, Dell has looked into opening retail operations in some countries. In April 2007, Dell opened a retail store in Budapest. In October of the same year, Dell opened a retail store in Moscow.

Retail in the UK
Since December 2007 HMV’s flagship Trocadero store has sold Dell XPS PCs. From January 2008 the UK stores of DSGi have sold Dell products (in particular, through Currys and PC World stores). As of 2008, the large supermarket-chain Tesco has sold Dell laptops and desktops in outlets throughout the UK.

Retail in Australia
In May 2008, Dell reached an agreement with office supply chain, Officeworks (part of Coles Group), to stock a few modified models in the Inspiron desktop and notebook range. These models have slightly different model numbers, but almost replicate the ones available from the Dell Store. Dell continued its retail push in the Australian market with its partnership with Harris Technology (another part of Coles Group) in November of the same year.

Competition
Dell’s major competitors include Apple, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Sun Microsystems, Gateway, Lenovo, Sony, Acer, Toshiba and Asus. Dell and its subsidiary, Alienware, compete in the enthusiast market against AVADirect, Falcon Northwest, VoodooPC (a subsidiary of HP), and other manufacturers. In the second quarter of 2006 Dell had between 18% and 19% share of the worldwide personal computer market, compared to HP with roughly 15%. By leveraging its business-model, Dell attempts to undercut competitors and offer customers a more attractive choice of personal computers and other equipment.

Dell in late 2006[update] lost its lead in the PC-business to Hewlett-Packard. Both Gartner and IDC estimated that in the third quarter of 2006, HP shipped more units worldwide than did Dell. Dell’s 3.6% growth paled in comparison to HP’s 15% growth during the same period. The problem got worse in the fourth quarter, when Gartner estimated that Dell PC shipments declined 8.9% (versus HP’s 23.9% growth). As a result, at the end of 2006 Dell’s overall PC market-share stood at 13.9% (versus HP’s 17.4%).

IDC reported that Dell lost more server market share than any of the top four competitors in that arena. IDC’s Q4 2006 estimates show Dell’s share of the server market at 8.1%, down from 9.5% in the previous year. This represents a 8.8% loss year-over-year, primarily to competitors EMC and IBM.[69]

Environmental record
Dell became the first company in the information technology industry to establish a product-recycling goal (in 2004) and completed the implementation of its global consumer recycling-program in 2006.[70] On February 6 2007, the National Recycling Coalition awarded Dell its “Recycling Works” award for efforts to promote producer responsibility.[71] On July 19 2007, Dell announced that it had exceeded targets in working to achieve a multi-year goal of recovering 275 million pounds of computer equipment by 2009.[72] The company reported the recovery of 78 million pounds (nearly 40,000 tons) of IT equipment from customers in 2006, a 93-percent increase over 2005; and 12.4% of the equipment Dell sold seven years earlier.[73]

On June 5 2007 Dell set a goal of becoming the greenest technology company on Earth for the long term. The company launched a zero-carbon initiative that includes:

reducing Dell’s carbon intensity by 15 percent by 2012
requiring primary suppliers to report carbon emissions data during quarterly business reviews
partnering with customers to build the “greenest PC on the planet”
expanding the company’s carbon-offsetting program, “Plant a Tree for Me”.
The company introduced the term “The Re-Generation” during a round table in London commemorating 2007 World Environment Day. “The Re-Generation” refers to people of all ages throughout the world who want to make a difference in improving the world’s environment. Dell also talked about plans to take the lead in setting an environmental standard for the “technology industry” and maintaining that leadership in the future.

Lawsuits and other legal action
In 1997 Håkan Lans sued Dell for infringement of his color graphics display patent, U.S. patent no. 4,303,986.[74] Dell won the case because Lans did not have any ownership interest in the patent, having assigned it to a corporation that he owned.
In 2005, Dell began the construction of a facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.[75] Many claims emerged that Dell had used unfair practices to obtain huge incentives.[76] Dell Inc. fought a lawsuit which the court system later dismissed.[77]
In October 2005, Dell filed a lawsuit in a Paris court to sue Minorca-based independent website-designer Paul Dell of “Dellimages” for engaging in “parasitism and unfair competition”. This related to his company website “DellWebsites”.[citation needed]
On January 31 2007, some shareholders filed a lawsuit accusing Dell and Intel of conspiring, and accusing Dell executives (including Michael Dell) of options backdating and of propped financial reports.[78] Specific allegations claimed that:
Dell had received kickbacks from Intel to maintain Intel exclusivity
Dell had used the funds to prop up its sales-figures
Dell reduced the period and scope of its warranties and cut corners on manufacturing and testing in order to funnel additional funds to sales; causing the stock-price to inflate to around $40 per share
once stock-prices had peaked, several Dell executives, including Michael Dell, sold massive amounts of their personal stock-holdings to benefit from the artificially inflated stock-price
On February 8 2007, seven current and former workers at a call-center in Roseburg, Oregon sued the computer-maker, saying the company worked its sales reps “off the clock”, failed to provide proper rest-breaks and improperly recorded their lunch-periods.[79] Moves have begun to turn the case into a class action. Dell suddenly closed down the facility at Roseburg, Oregon on August 2 2007.[80] The facility had consisted of computer and electronics sales-agents and of customer-service representatives.
In March 2007 an article titled “Computer Giant Faces Consumer Lawsuit Consumers Allege They Didn’t Get the Tech Support They Paid For” appeared on an ABC News website.[81] “Part of the suit claims that though Dell gave the impression of an “award-winning service” available to consumers “24 hours a day, seven days a week”, consumers faced “nightmarish obstacles” to get help and technical service for their computers. New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said that New York had received 700 complaints about Dell — more than the number of complaints for any other related subject.
In May 2007, Andrew Cuomo filed a lawsuit against Dell for “false advertising and deceptive business practices, including offering misleading financing, and failing to honor rebates, warranties and service contracts.” [3] Dell spokesman Bob Pearson portrayed the lawsuit as based on only a small portion of Dell’s customers and as in no way reflecting the way the company treats its customers. Dell’s hardware-warranty contract says that customers must troubleshoot over the phone — including possibly opening the computer — before Dell will send a technical service provider to replace a part. On May 27 2008, State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Teresi required that Dell clarify its financing and warranty criteria, saying the computer maker engaged in fraud, false advertising, deceptive business and abusive debt-collection practices.[82] Parties have filed more than 1,000 additional complaints with the attorney general’s office since the initial filing of the lawsuit in May 2007.[83]
On December 5 2007, Typhoon Touch Technologies filed a lawsuit naming Dell inc. along with other defendants, and alleging patent-violations over Dell’s use of touchscreen technology.[84]

SEC investigation
On August 17 2007, Dell Inc announced that after an internal investigation into its accounting practices it would restate and reduce earnings from 2003 through to the first quarter of 2007 by a total amount of between $50 million and $150 million, or 2 cents to 7 cents per share.[85] The investigation, begun in November 2006, resulted from concerns raised by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over some documents and information that Dell Inc. had submitted.[86]

Criticism
In the 1990s Dell switched from using primarily ATX motherboards and PSU to using boards and power-supplies with mechanically identical but differently wired connectors. This meant customers wishing to upgrade their hardware could encounter unforeseen problems. However, company practice in this respect changed in 2003.[87][88]

In 2005, complaints about Dell more than doubled to 1,533, after earnings grew 52% that year.

In 2006, Dell acknowledged that it had problems with customer service. Issues included call-transfers of more than 45% of calls and long wait-times. Dell’s blog detailed the response: “We’re spending more than a $100 million — and a lot of blood, sweat and tears of talented people — to fix this.” Later in the year, the company increased its spending on customer service to $150 million.

In May, 2008 the New York Supreme Court ruled that Dell and Dell Financial Services “engaged in fraud, false advertising, deceptive business practices, and abusive debt collection practices.” The relevant lawsuit aimed primarily[citation needed] to highlight and seek restitution for a lack of technical support given to customers by Dell. The court plans to hold further proceedings to determine how much money Dell has to pay out to customers and how much profit Dell made unlawfully, in New York.
From:Wikipedia

No other company offers as complete a technology product portfolio as HP. HP provide infrastructure and business offerings that span from handheld devices to some of the world’s most powerful supercomputer installations. HP offer consumers a wide range of products and services from digital photography to digital entertainment and from computing to home printing. This comprehensive portfolio helps HP match the right products, services and solutions to our customers’ specific needs.

HP markets its products to households, small to medium size businesses and enterprises both directly, via online distribution, consumer-electronics and office-supply retailers, software partners and major technology vendors.

HP posted US $91.7 billion in annual revenue in 2006 compared to US$91.4 billion for IBM, making it the world’s largest technology vendor in terms of sales. In 2007 the revenue was $104 billion, making HP the first IT company in history to report revenues exceeding $100 billion.

HP is the largest worldwide seller of personal computers, surpassing rival Dell, according to market research firms Gartner and IDC reported in January 2008;the gap between HP and Dell widened substantially at the end of 2007, with HP taking a near 3.9% market share lead. HP is also the 5th largest software company in the world.It is one of the only American PC-focused computer companies publicly traded under the New York Stock Exchange.

Founding
William (Bill) Hewlett and David (Dave) Packard both graduated in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1935. The company originated in a garage in nearby Palo Alto during a fellowship they had with a past professor, Frederick Terman at Stanford during the Great Depression. Terman was considered a mentor to them in forming Hewlett-Packard.[7]

The partnership was formalized in 1939 with an investment of US$538.[8] Hewlett and Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett. Packard won the coin toss but named their electronics manufacturing enterprise the “Hewlett-Packard Company”. HP incorporated on August 18, 1947, and went public on November 6, 1957.

Of the many projects they worked on, their very first financially successful product was a precision audio oscillator, the Model HP200A. Their innovation was the use of a small light bulb as a temperature dependent resistor in a critical portion of the circuit. This allowed them to sell the Model 200A for $54.40 when competitors were selling less stable oscillators for over $200. The Model 200 series of generators continued until at least 1972 as the 200AB, still tube-based but improved in design through the years. At 33 years, it was perhaps the longest-selling basic electronic design of all time.

One of the company’s earliest customers was The Walt Disney Company, which bought eight Model 200B oscillators (at $71.50 each) for use in certifying the Fantasound surround sound systems installed in theaters for the movie Fantasia.

Early years
The company was originally rather unfocused, working on a wide range of electronic products for industry and even agriculture. Eventually they elected to focus on high-quality electronic test and measurement equipment.

From the 1940s until well into the 1990s the company concentrated on making electronic test equipment – signal generators, voltmeters, oscilloscopes, frequency counters, thermometers, time standards, wave analyzers, and many other instruments. A distinguishing feature was pushing the limits of measurement range and accuracy; many HP instruments were more sensitive, accurate, and precise than other comparable equipment.[citation needed]

Following the pattern set by the company’s first product, the 200A, test instruments were labelled with three to five digits followed by the letter “A”. Improved versions went to suffixes “B” through “E”. As the product range grew wider HP started using product designators starting with a letter for accessories, supplies, software, and components.

The 1960s
HP is recognized as the symbolic founder of Silicon Valley, although it did not actively investigate semiconductor devices until a few years after the “Traitorous Eight” had abandoned William Shockley to create Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957. Hewlett-Packard’s HP Associates division, established around 1960, developed semiconductor devices primarily for internal use. Instruments and calculators were some of the products using these devices.

HP partnered in the 1960s with Sony and the Yokogawa Electric companies in Japan to develop several high-quality products. The products were not a huge success, as there were high costs in building HP-looking products in Japan. HP and Yokogawa formed a joint venture (Yokogawa-Hewlett-Packard) in 1963 to market HP products in Japan.[9] HP bought Yokogawa Electric’s share of Hewlett-Packard Japan in 1999.[10]

HP spun off a small company, Dynec, to specialize in digital equipment. The name was picked so that the HP logo “hp” could be turned upside down to be the logo “dy” of the new company. Eventually Dynec changed to Dymec, then was folded back into HP. HP experimented with using Digital Equipment Corporation minicomputers with its instruments. But after deciding that it would be easier to buy another small design team than deal with DEC, HP entered the computer market in 1966 with the HP 2100 / HP 1000 series of minicomputers. These had a simple accumulator-based design, with registers arranged somewhat similarly to the Intel x86 architecture still used today. The series was produced for 20 years, in spite of several attempts to replace it, and was a forerunner of the HP 9800 and HP 250 series of desktop and business computers.

The 1970s
The HP 3000 was an advanced stack-based design for a business computing server, later redesigned with RISC technology, that has only recently been retired from the market. The HP 2640 series of smart and intelligent terminals introduced forms-based interfaces to ASCII terminals, and also introduced screen labeled function keys, now commonly used on gas pumps and bank ATMs. Although scoffed at in the formative days of computing, HP would eventually surpass even IBM as the world’s largest technology vendor in sales.

HP is identified by Wired magazine as the producer of the world’s first marketed, mass-produced personal computer, the Hewlett-Packard 9100A, introduced in 1968.[11] HP called it a desktop calculator because, as Bill Hewlett said, “If we had called it a computer, it would have been rejected by our customers’ computer gurus because it didn’t look like an IBM. We therefore decided to call it a calculator, and all such nonsense disappeared.” An engineering triumph at the time, the logic circuit was produced without any integrated circuits; the assembly of the CPU having been entirely executed in discrete components. With CRT display, magnetic-card storage, and printer, the price was around $5000. The machine’s keyboard was a cross between that of a scientific calculator and an adding machine. There was no alphabetical keyboard.

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, originally designed the Apple I computer while working at HP and offered it to them under their right of first refusal to his work, but they did not take it up as the company wanted to stay in scientific, business, and industrial markets.

The company earned global respect for a variety of products. They introduced the world’s first handheld scientific electronic calculator in 1972 (the HP-35), the first handheld programmable in 1974 (the HP-65), the first alphanumeric, programmable, expandable in 1979 (the HP-41C), and the first symbolic and graphing calculator, the HP-28C. Like their scientific and business calculators, their oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and other measurement instruments have a reputation for sturdiness and usability (the latter products are now part of spin-off Agilent’s product line). The company’s design philosophy in this period was summarized as “design for the guy at the next bench”.

The 98×5 series of technical desktop computers started in 1975 with the 9815, and the cheaper 80 series, again of technical computers, started in 1979 with the 85[1]. These machines used a version of the BASIC programming language which was available immediately after they were switched on, and used a proprietary magnetic tape for storage. HP computers were similar in capabilities to the much later IBM Personal Computer, although the limitations of available technology forced prices to be high.

The 1980s
In 1984, HP introduced both inkjet and laser printers for the desktop. Along with its scanner product line, these have later been developed into successful multifunction products, the most significant being single-unit printer/scanner/copier/fax machines. The print mechanisms in HP’s tremendously popular LaserJet line of laser printers depend almost entirely on Canon’s components (print engines), which in turn use technology developed by Xerox. HP develops the hardware, firmware, and software that convert data into dots for the mechanism to print.

In 1987, the Palo Alto garage where Hewlett and Packard started their business was designated as a California State historical landmark.

The 1990s
In the 1990s, HP expanded their computer product line, which initially had been targeted at university, research, and business customers, to reach consumers.

HP also grew through acquisitions, buying Apollo Computer in 1989 and Convex Computer in 1995.

Later in the decade HP opened hpshopping.com as an independent subsidiary to sell online, direct to consumers; in 2005 the store was renamed “HP Home & Home Office Store.”

In 1999, all of the businesses not related to computers, storage, and imaging were spun off from HP to form Agilent. Agilent’s spin-off was the largest initial public offering in the history of Silicon Valley. The spin-off created an $8 billion company with about 30,000 employees, manufacturing scientific instruments, semiconductors, optical networking devices, and electronic test equipment for telecom and wireless R&D and production.

In July 1999, HP appointed Carly Fiorina as CEO, the first female CEO of a company in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Fiorina served as CEO during the tech downtown of the turn of the 2nd millenium. During her tenure, the market halved HP’s value commensurate with other tech companies at the time and the company incurred heavy job losses.[12] The HP Board of Directors asked Fiorina to step down in 2005, and she resigned on February 9, 2005.

2000 and beyond
Compaq merger. HP merged with Compaq in 2002. Compaq itself had bought Tandem Computers in 1997 (which had been started by ex-HP employees), and Digital Equipment Corporation in 1998. Following this strategy HP became a major player in desktops, laptops, and servers for many different markets. After the merger with Compaq, the new ticker symbol became “HPQ”, a combination of the two previous symbols, “HWP” and “CPQ”, to show the significance of the alliance. In 2006 hp outsourced its enterprise support to countries with lower cost workers: the Spanish support (for Spain) moved to Slovakia, the German support moved to Bulgaria, English support moved to Costa Rica, and so on.

EDS purchase. On May 13, 2008, HP and Electronic Data Systems announced [13] that they had signed a definitive agreement under which HP would purchase EDS. On June 30, HP announced [14] that the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 had expired. “The transaction still requires EDS stockholder approval and regulatory clearance from the European Commission and other non-U.S. jurisdictions and is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of the other closing conditions specified in the merger agreement.” The agreement was finalized on August 26, 2008 and it was publicly announced that EDS would be re-branded “EDS an HP company.”

HP also expanded its presence in Israel first with the acqusistion in 2002 of Indigo Digital Press and in November 2005 with the acquisition of Scitex Vision from Scitex Corporation Ltd..

In October 2008, Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co. was named one of “Canada’s Top 100 Employers” by Mediacorp Canada Inc., and was featured in Maclean’s newsmagazine. Later that month, Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co. was also named one of Greater Toronto’s Top Employers, which was announced by the Toronto Star newspaper.[15]

Technology and products

“The new Hewlett-Packard 9100A personal computer is ready, willing, and able … to relieve you of waiting to get on the big computer.”
A HP Compaq computer and a Hewlett-Packard Deskjet 5740 printer owned by the Houston Independent School District
A modern HP Pavilion Laptop
A modern HP digital camera; the HP Photosmart R817.
A camera that uses the SDIO interfaceHP has successful lines of printers, scanners, digital cameras, calculators, PDAs, servers, workstation computers, and computers for home and small business use computers; many of the computers came from the 2002 merger with Compaq. HP today promotes itself as supplying not just hardware and software, but also a full range of services to design, implement and support IT infrastructure.

The three business segments: Enterprise Storage and Servers (ESS), HP Services (HPS), and HP Software are structured beneath the broader Technology Solutions Group (TSG).

Imaging and Printing Group (IPG)
According to HP’s 2005 U.S. SEC 10-K filing,[16] HP’s Imaging and Printing Group is “the leading imaging and printing systems provider in the world for printer hardware, printing supplies and scanning devices, providing solutions across customer segments from individual consumers to small and medium businesses to large enterprises.” This division is currently headed by Vyomesh Joshi.

Products and technology associated with the Imaging and Printing Group include:

Inkjet and LaserJet printers, consumables and related products
Officejet all-in-one multifunction printer/scanner/faxes
Large Format Printers
Indigo Digital Press
HP Web Jetadmin printer management software
HP Output Management suite of software, including HP Output Server
LightScribe optical recording technology that laser-etches labels on disks
HP Photosmart digital cameras and photo printers
HP SPaM Hosted within IPG, SPaM is an internal consulting group that supports all HP businesses on mission-critical strategic and operation decisions.
On December 23, 2008, HP releases iPrint Photo for iPhone a free downloadable software application that allows to print 4″ x 6″ photos.[17]

Personal Systems Group (PSG)
HP’s Personal Systems Group claims to be “one of the leading vendors of personal computers (“PCs”) in the world based on unit volume shipped and annual revenue.”[16]

Personal Systems Group products/technology include:

Business PCs and accessories
Consumer PCs and accessories including the HP Pavilion, Compaq Presario and VoodooPC series
Workstations for Unix, Windows and Linux systems
Handheld Computing including iPAQ Pocket PC handheld computing devices (from Compaq)
Digital “Connected” Entertainment including HP MediaSmart TVs, HP MediaSmart Servers, HP MediaVaults, and DVD+RW drives. HP resold the Apple iPod until November 2005.[16]
Home Storage Servers

Technology Solutions Group (TSG)
Main article: HP Technology Solutions Group
TSG incorporates Technical services, EDS, HP Software & Solutions, Enterprise Storage and Servers Group (ESS) and ProCurve Networking.

Enterprise Storage and Servers Group (ESS)
“Back end” products including storage and servers:

HP ProLiant: entry line of x86 based servers (from Compaq)
ProLiant BL: x86-based blade servers (from Compaq)
Integrity: server line using the Itanium processor architecture running several operating systems including HP-UX and OpenVMS.
Integrity BL: Itanium-based blade servers
HP Integrity Superdome: line of high-end servers
HP 9000: line of servers and workstations based on PA-RISC processors and running HP-UX
HP 9000 Superdome: line of high-end servers
AlphaServer: product line using the Alpha processor (from DEC) and running either:
Tru64 operating system (from DEC)
OpenVMS operating system (from DEC)
NonStop: high-reliability Itanium-based architecture and operating system (from Tandem Computers)
StorageWorks: product line (from DEC), which includes business class and enterprise class data storage and protection products.[18]
StorageWorks HP XP high-end storage arrays (from Hitachi)
StorageWorks EVA mid-range storage arrays (from Compaq)

HP Software
the OpenView family of management software
With the major acquisitions of Peregrine and Mercury Interactive completed, HP has dropped the names OpenView, Peregrine and Mercury from its portfolio. The Business Technology Optimization (BTO)part of the software organization is now being referred to as HP Software & Solutions. The OpenCall branding still remains.

HP Data Protector software
HP Integrated Archive Platform
HP Database Archiving
HP Email Archiving for Microsoft Exchange
HP Email Archiving for IBM Lotus Domino
HP File Archiving
HP Medical Image Archiving
HP TRIM software (previously TOWER Software)
HP-UX operating system developed since 1983

ProCurve Networking Business Unit
Main article: ProCurve
HPs networking business unit, ProCurve, are responsible for the family of network switches, wireless access points, and routers.[19]. Originally under the control of the Office of Strategy and Technology, since November 1 2008 they are a Business Unit of TSG.

Office of Strategy and Technology
HP’s Office of Strategy and Technology [20], under Executive Vice President Shane Robison:

Steers the company’s $3.6 billion research and development investment — including HP Labs.
Fosters the development of the company’s global technical community.
Leads the company’s strategy and corporate development efforts — including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, intellectual property licensing, venture capital partnerships, and the ProCurve Networking Business Unit. [21]
Performs worldwide corporate marketing activities — including external and internal communications, brand marketing, customer intelligence, and corporate affairs.

HP Labs
Main article: HP Labs
HP Labs (or HP Laboratories) is the research arm of HP. Founded in 1966, HP Labs’ function is to deliver new technologies and to create business opportunities that go beyond HP’s current strategies. An example of recent HP Lab technology includes the Memory spot chip.

HP IdeaLab
HP IdeaLab www.hp.com/idealab provides a web forum on early-state innovations to encourage open feedback from consumers and the development community. [22]

Environmental record
In 1998, the United States Environmental Protection Agency‎ sought a $2.5 million penalty against Hewlett Packard for violations against the Substance Control Act.[23] The PA EPA alleged that the company had not filed a Pre-Manufacturing Notice (PMN) before it began manufacturing and exporting chemicals. Without filing these PMNs, the EPA cannot conduct risk analysis of new chemicals.

In 2002, Scorecard.org ranked Hewlett Packard facilities in the top 10-20 percentile for total environmental releases and top 30-40 percentile for air releases of recognized developmental toxicants.[24] It also showed that HPs factory in Puerto Rico released 246 lb (112 kg) of air released TRI pollutants, and had a total of 483,136 lb (219,147 kg) of production related wastes.[24]

In July 2007, the company announced that it had met its target, set in 2004, to recycle 1 billion pounds of electronics and toner and ink cartridges.[25] It has set a new goal of recycling a further 2 billion pounds of hardware by the end of 2010. In 2006, the company recovered 187 million pounds of electronics, 73 percent more than its closest competitor.[citation needed]

HP Certified Professionals
Main article: HP Certified Professional
Hewlett-Packard’s Certified Professional (HP-CP) program was developed to confirm the technical skills, sales competencies and knowledge that is required to propose and deploy, service and support technology and solutions sold by HP. HP-CP is intended for customers, resellers, and HP employees.

Sponsorships

Mission: Space SignHP has many sponsorships. One well known sponsorship is of Walt Disney World’s Epcot Park’s Mission: SPACE. Others can be found on Hewlett-Packard’s website [2]. From 1995 to 1999 they were the shirt sponsor of English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur. They also sponsored the BMW Williams Formula 1 team. Hewlett-Packard also has the naming rights arrangement for the HP Pavilion at San Jose, home of the San Jose Sharks NHL hockey team.

Product legacy
Agilent Technologies, not HP, retains the direct product legacy of the original company founded in 1939. Agilent’s current portfolio of electronic instruments are descended from HP’s very earliest products. HP entered the computer business only after its instrumentation competencies were well-established.

After the acquisition of Compaq in 2002, HP has maintained the “Compaq Presario” brand on low-end home desktops and laptops, the “HP Compaq” brand on business desktops and laptops, and the “HP ProLiant” brand on Intel-architecture servers. (The “HP Pavilion” brand is used on home entertainment laptops and all home desktops.)[26]

HP uses DEC’s “StorageWorks” brand on storage systems; Tandem’s “NonStop” servers are now branded as “HP Integrity NonStop”.[27]

Culture
The founders, known to friends and employees alike as Bill and Dave, developed a unique management style that has come to be known as the HP Way. In Bill’s words, the HP Way is “a core ideology … [which] includes a deep respect for the individual, a dedication to affordable quality and reliability, a commitment to community responsibility, and a view that the company exists to make technical contributions for the advancement and welfare of humanity.”[28]

Controversy

HP pretexting scandal
Main article: 2006 HP spying scandal
On September 5, 2006 Newsweek published a story[29] revealing that the chairwoman of HP, Patricia Dunn, had hired a team of independent electronic-security experts that later spied on HP board members and several journalists, to determine the source of a leak of confidential details regarding HP’s long-term strategy in January, 2006. The independent, third party company used a technique known as pretexting to obtain call records of HP board members and nine journalists, including reporters for CNET, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Dunn has claimed she did not know the methods the investigators used to determine the source of the leak.[30] Board member George Keyworth was ultimately outed as the source.

On September 12, 2006 Keyworth resigned from the board and HP announced that Mark Hurd, the current CEO and president, would replace Dunn as Chairman after the HP board meeting on January 18, 2007.

On September 22, 2006 Hurd announced at a special press briefing that Dunn had resigned effective immediately from both the Chairmanship role and as a director of the Board;

On September 28, 2006, Ann Baskins, HP’s general counsel (head attorney) resigned[31] hours before she was to appear as a witness at which she would later invoke the Fifth Amendment to “not be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime.”[32]

Investigation by the government
On October 4, 2006, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed criminal charges and arrest warrants against Kevin Hunsaker, Dunn and three outside investigators.[33] On September 11, 2006, the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce wrote to Patricia Dunn stating that they have been conducting an investigation on Internet-based data brokers who allegedly use “lies, fraud and deception” to acquire personal information, and allow anyone who paid a “modest fee” to acquire “itemized incoming and outgoing call logs”, and when had learned about HP’s use of pretexting through their September 6 SEC filing and through their own inquiry of HP’s Nominating and Governance Committee, stating they are “troubled” by the information, “particularly that it involves HP—one of America’s corporate icons.”

The committee requested, under Rules X and XI of the United States House of Representatives, information from HP by September 18, 2006:

At the September 28, 2006 hearing, Dunn and Hurd[34] both testified extensively about the investigation. Dunn testified that until June or July 2006, she did not realize that “pretexting” could involve identity misrepresentation. Dunn repeatedly insisted that she had believed that personal phone records could be obtained through legal methods.

Other witnesses refused to answer questions due to the ongoing criminal investigations.[32]

Perceived impact on the company’s operations
Despite the intense media coverage, investors continue to show faith in the company. As of October 23, the price of the company’s stock had increased from $36.50 to $39.87 per share.[35]

On October 8, 2006 Reuters ran a story describing pretexting used by Hewlett-Packard and other companies.[36]

On October 12, 2006 hp announced the appointment of Jon Hoak as vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer. Hoak served as senior vice president and general counsel for NCR from 1993 until May 2006.[37]

On December 7, 2006 hp paid $14.5 Million to settle civil charges brought by the California Attorney General.[38]

In December 2006, two members of Congress requested that HP provide more information regarding CEO Mark Hurd’s sale of $1.4 million of stock options on August 25, the same day he was questioned by attorneys investigating the pretexting scandal.[39] Mark Hurd explained that the August trade was part of his normal investment strategy to diversify assets and was made during a regularly scheduled trading window for senior officers and directors.[citation needed] Additionally, Hurd assured the Subcommittee that the August trade had nothing to do with his interview by attorneys investigating the leak investigation and that he had initiated the trade before any such request had been made to him.[citation needed]

Traceable e-mail
Fred Adler of HP revealed before a U.S. Congressional Inquiry that HP used an e-mail tracking service to trace a leak in an e-mail sent to CNET reporter Dawn Kawamoto.[40] The e-mail contained a Web bug. Adler stated that HP considers Web bugs to be a legitimate investigative tool, and has used them a number of times.[41] The California attorney general’s office has said that this practice was not part of the Pretexting charges.[42]

Management
Chairman of the Board, CEO, and President: Mark Hurd (March 29, 2005–current, appointed Chairman September 22, 2006)

History
Co-founder: David Packard (President: 1947; Chairman: 1964–1969; Chairman 1971–1993)
Co-founder: William Hewlett (Vice President: 1947; Executive Vice President: 1957; President: 1964; CEO: 1969; Chairman of the Executive Committee 1978; Vice Chairman 1983–1987)
CEO: John A. Young (1978–October 31, 1992)
CEO: Lewis Platt (November 1, 1992–July 18, 1999; Chairman 1993–July 18, 1999)
Chairman: Richard Hackborn (January, 2000–September 22, 2000; Lead Independent Director September 22, 2006–)
CEO: Carly Fiorina (July 19, 1999–February 9, 2005; Chairwoman September 22, 2000–February 9, 2005)
Interim CEO: Robert Wayman (February 9, 2005–March 28, 2005)
Chairwoman: Patricia C. Dunn (February 9, 2005–September 22, 2006).
CEO: Mark Hurd (CEO: April 1, 2005–; Chairman: September 22, 2006–)

Rankings methodology:For the 2008 Vault consulting survey, we selected a list of top consulting firms to include. These consulting firms were chosen because of their prominence in the consulting industry and their interest to consulting job seekers. This year, over 4,000 consultants responded to our survey.
The Vault survey was distributed to the firms on Vault’s list in spring 2008. In some cases, Vault contacted practicing consultants directly. Survey respondents were asked to rate each consulting firm on the survey on a scale of 1 to 10 based on prestige, with 10 being the most prestigious. Consultants were unable to rate their own firm, and they were asked to rate only those firms with which they were familiar.

Vault collected the survey results and averaged the score for each firm. The firms were then ranked, with the highest score being No. 1, down to No. 50.

We also asked survey respondents to give their perceptions of other consulting firms besides their own. A selection of those comments is featured on each firm profile as The Buzz.

Remember that Vault’s top-50 strategy consulting firms are chosen by practicing consultants at top consulting firms. Vault does not choose or influence the rankings. The rankings measure perceived prestige (as determined by consulting professionals) and not revenue, size or lifestyle.

学习英语应该遵循由简入繁、由易到难、由粗至细的原则，将其当作一个长期的生活方式来培养——而不是将其视为应试的一块敲门砖。作为表现工具的语言，随着掌握精度和水平的提高，其带来的乐趣会越来越强烈，当学习成为了生活习惯的一部分时，所吸取的便不是语言——而是知识了。

英语作为英美国家的母语，我们在学会它的过程中会自然的汲取英美国家的社会、经济、人文、历史等各方面的信息，英语并不等于汉语的翻译，而汉语也不等于英语的翻译，知识量的丰富最终带来的是文化的交流。有一种说法是：Language＝Information＝Knowledge，我们购买教材、订阅英文博客、下载无字幕版的美剧等等行为，都是为了知识这个目的而得以努力与完成。

心理学研究指出，人会自然记住自己感兴趣的东西，遗忘自己不感兴趣的东西，当理解自己感兴趣的东西时，无需时时刻刻想着，也会深深印在我们心底深处。选择英语材料应该因人而异，选择自己感兴趣的英文材料才行，否则吸收的效果肯定不好。同时，多阅读启发性强的文字，对自己的提高会有很大帮助，有数据显示，“每天两小时”的阅读时间，在连续60天，也就是120小时以上的阅读量后，英文创作能力会达到第一阶段内质的飞跃。

这里推荐一个可以作为英文学习的优秀平台：Asiaing.com（亚洲进行时），该网站收集和提供了互联网上的免费eBooks与电子杂志等英文材料资源，网站色调以朴素白为主，多栏布局，继承了典型的Web2.0风格，在网站右上角还能通过按钮来自由调整全站字体的尺寸，英语爱好者可以以订阅RSS或者注册会员的方式即时获取英文资源的收录和更新，包括商业、计算机科学、医学、生物、哲学、时尚等行业内容。个人感觉Asiaing.com的更新速率和资源质量还是很卓越的，也很方便通过检索的方式有目的性的寻找适合自己的信息，在FeedBurner上已有超过4000名订阅用户，不同于商业网站，作为互联网资源贡献渠道的补充，Asiaing.com由一个松散的志愿者联盟进行运作，他们致力于让知识变得随手可得、使每一个有能力上网和有能力阅读的人都能得到和分享知识——这是一个相当宏大的梦想，但是互联网就是诞生奇迹的原生乐土，谁敢说下一个维基百科式的辉煌不会在明天诞生？而且Asiaing.com也是一个节省成本的手段，琳琅满目的英文实体杂志和书籍会随着订购数量的攀升而对个人财务造成负担，充分利用互联网中的免费资源是一项值得灵活运用的技巧，而且Asiaing.com还提供注册会员的Free subscriptions（杂志免费订阅）服务，在填写一份申请表格后，便有机会得到商业版权杂志的免费订阅服务，包括印刷版和电子版两种，这亦是这个网站吸引我的地方之一。

互联网时代意味着社会化网络的普及，在梦想随时都在变为现实的今天，世界各地的人都有机会成为语言学习伙伴，学习英文不再是一个枯燥而乏味的进度表，相反，各类平台和工具的鲜活应用让它成为习惯的一部分，摩西英语的作者摩西信奉来自公元九世纪时查理曼大帝的一句名言：“学习另一种语言就是去拥有第二个灵魂。（To learn a second language is to own another soul.)”。同以这句名言，与所有英语爱好者共勉。
来源：网易

By JOHN BERMAN
Nov. 15, 2008

There were throngs of fans, an army of supporters and a sea of volunteers working, sacrificing much of their lives to help Barack Obama emerge victorious from the presidential election.

When he won, it was pure exhilaration. But now what?

“Honestly, the next day there was a little bit of a deflation,” Obama volunteer Zeba Khan told “Good Morning America,” “like we were down a little.”

Khan, 28, is one of a number of Obama activists who have found themselves at a loss. Their mission accomplished, there is no longer that cause to throw their enthusiasm behind.

“It became my life,” said Khan, who knocked on doors in Ohio and even set up a Web site to solicit support from Muslim Americans. “It literally was.”

The Obama campaign built an unprecedented network of support, which included an e-mail list with 10 million names and cell phone numbers, had 3 million donors and 1.5 million active volunteers.