Nashville supports Dell's 'Digital Nomads'

Dell Inc.'s Tuesday announcement that it's targeting the 'Digital Nomads' demographic with its new Latitude and Precision laptops -- with up to 19-hour battery life -- means more activity for Dell's Nashville distribution center, which makes all U.S. shipments of laptop products. But, a Dell spokesman told VNC this week the new products won't trigger hiring here. Dell has about 3,600 employees at logistics, manufacturing, upsell and customer-care sites in Middle Tennessee. Dell, the same company that recently tried to trademark "Cloud Computing," is now working to secure its brand-linked ownership of the "Digital Nomads" and has created a website oasis for the tribe. Metrics: In a release this week, Dell declared that since 1995 it has "shipped more business laptops worldwide than anybody." That, of course, is a jab at Hewlett-Packard. Dell is second to HP worldwide in PC shipments, with 15.7 versus HP's 18 percent marketshare. But, in the U.S. alone, Dell leads 32/25 on PCs. On notebook-class machines, Dell says it has 32.9 and 19.9 percent of U.S. and global markets, respectively, and aims to expand its lead by introducing more notebook products in the coming year. Dell will report its 2nd Quarter results Aug. 28. It's first quarter results sported $16.1 billion in revenue (up 9.2% over year-earlier) and unit shipments 22 percent higher than year-earlier. At March 31, Dell had $9.8 billion in cash and investments ontap. Trend and notes: Dell's shipment of mobility products was up 43 percent Y/Y, compared with desktops up 9 percent. With its $3 billion layoffs and streamlining underway, Dell took about $106 million in severance and related charges in Q1. Dell claims its product lineup is the most robust in its history and says it's regaining faded competitiveness.