Dell`s reliable desktop

Frost & Sullivan`s CEO Choice Awards honours Dell as the most reliable manufacturer of desktop computers in North America for the second year running, according to a company statement.

The statement claims that a margin of almost two to one ranked Dell notebooks as the favourite among CEOs and presidents, while Dell desktops received more than three times as many votes as the nearest competitor.

Dell also took the top spot in notebook customer service, receiving four times the number of votes as the nearest competitor, the statement says.

Trek to the summit

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Acer, the world`s fourth largest PC vendor, aims to be one of the top three PC makers as revenues and income increased on last year`s figures, says Taipei Times article.

"The trend of replacing desktops computers with laptops will accelerate over the next two years, which will benefit Acer, whose core strength lies in notebook computers," chairman Wang Jen-tang told investors.

According to Wang, notebook computers account for about 30% of the whole computer market and this figure is set to rise to 50% over the next two years.

To become a top three PC player within the next two years, Acer plans not only to up their fast-growing portable computer products but to also focus on its desktop product lines. Focusing on both segments is important if the company wishes to overtake Chinese computer giant Lenovo, the article reports.

eWeek reports that PC maker Dell is partnering with Japanese security software-maker Trend Micro to sell Internet security software to consumers.

Dell plans to not only load free 90-day trial versions of PC-cillin on PCs shipped to North American consumers, but by February 2006 Trend Micro`s PC-cillin will be marked as being "Dell recommended". The company currently recommends a rival McAfee product.

Although this agreement does not necessarily direct sales to Trend Micro, it could assist in boosting its software to the North American market, which currently stands at 7%.

PC World reports that several new notebooks and a 37-inch LCD TV with built-in media gateway were displayed at Acer`s recent investors` conference in Taipei.

According to an Acer representative, the media gateway allows video, music, pictures, and other data on a PC to be played directly on the LCD TV, with dual remote control (for TV and PC).

This new TV, set to be launched until early next year, will be ready for high-definition broadcasts and supports Dolby digital, Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB), and a number of video and audio formats including Microsoft Windows Media Video (WMV).