John G. Spooner

Hewlett-Packard wants to be known as the PC maker with the lowest prices. Although it faces fierce competition from Dell Inc. and Gateway Inc., which are also known for selling inexpensive PCs, Hewlett-Packard Co. says it can do better. The Palo Alto, Calif., computer giant, which has battled with Dell for the rank of worlds […]

Hurricanes have driven up energy prices in the United States, but they have yet to brush up against the PC industry. Now that the fourth quarter is under way, PC manufacturers have much to look forward to. This quarter is typically the busiest of the year, thanks to holiday sales to consumers and corporate spend-it-or-lose-it […]

Hewlett-Packard on Monday announced plans to acquire blade server pioneer RLX Technologies for an undisclosed sum. After the purchase, Hewlett-Packard Co. said, it plans to merge RLX Technologies Inc.s blade server management software with its own hardware resource management offering. This will make the HP management software easier to use and, by extension, make its […]

Samsung Electronics, already a chip giant, appears to be gearing up to take an even bigger piece of the semiconductor market. Best known for being the top maker of dynamic RAM for personal computers and for supplying flash memory for Apple Computer Inc.s iPod music players, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. plans to spend $33 billion […]

Dell Inc. is taking a page from auto maker Toyota Motor Co.s playbook and recasting its XPS Media Center PC line with a series of new models and services. Dell and Toyota have studied each other in the past. Now Dell is borrowing from car makers luxury branding approach to elevate its Dell XPS line […]

Intel is quietly offering a handful of low-end Pentium 4 processors to large PC makers. Normally trumpeted as Intel Corp.s flagship chip brand, chips such the new Pentium 4 516, which do not appear on the chip makers public price list, are actually closer to its Celeron D value brand chips. Like the Celeron line, […]

AMD is offering businesses a new deal. The chip maker on Tuesday launched a program under which it has pledged to assist in locking down the hardware inside business PCs based on its chips for 15 months at a time. Holding a PC lines components steady helps avoid software changes. Those changes can cause headaches […]

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Intel Corp. continue making moves to increase the performance of their processors while controlling the amount of power they consume. AMD, of Sunnyvale, Calif., this week is rolling out dual-core Opteron chips with a higher frequency than current chips. The chip maker is releasing the 180, 280 and 880 models—for […]

Intel is funding a new twist on virtualization. The Santa Clara, Calif., chip maker on Monday announced a partnership with Virtual Iron Software Inc., an Acton, Mass., startup whose product offers data center-level virtualization. Intel Corp. also said that its Intel Capital arm, along with other investors, granted $8.5 million in venture capital to Virtual […]

Dual-core processor notebooks are mustering to take over the world of portable PCs. The transition—a move that began in desktops and servers earlier this year—will get under way in January when dual-core processors forthcoming from Intel Corp. begin arriving in systems. Computer makers, who are at the moment designing and testing notebooks with dual-core Intel […]