Michael Dell pins Windows 8 hopes on consumer upgrades

Michael Dell has spoken of his hopes for the upcoming launch of Microsoft Windows 8, saying that although enterprise buyers were still in the process of upgrading to Windows 7 and would tend to hold off, there were early signs of a massive refresh in the consumer sector.

"We think [that] unlike other Windows transitions, this is a transition where you are generally going to need a new PC," said the eponymous CEO. "The addition of capacitive touch capability into Windows 8, we think, will be a welcome addition and [we] will have a full complement of products at the time of launch.

"The product refresh cycle associated with this release of Windows is likely to be very different," he said.

Dell was speaking to analysts on a conference call to mark the end of the first quarter of its fiscal 2013, during which the company revealed that its PC business contracted sharply, helping drive overall sales down by 4% year-on-year to $14.42bn (£9.17bn), while net profit fell 33% to $635m.

Brian Gladden, Dell CFO, explained: "Some of the tougher competitive environment can be attributed to channel inventory building, following the hard disk issues of the past two quarters. In addition we're seeing more consumer IT spending diverted to alternative mobile computing devices [and] these dynamics impacted both our revenue and margins for the quarter."

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