September 2007 - Direct2Dell

We'll begin the transition at 12:01 Central Daylight Time on Sunday and expect to be done by 5am on Sunday morning. In other words, it should be about a five hour window. Even though the changeover will happen pretty quickly, it may take bit longer for the site to return to normal to users around the world due to factors like where you are located physically, your Internet Service Provider, and more.

When people ask how long it took to launch Direct2Dell, the answer is about four weeks. That timeframe included everything  from platform assessment and selection to having the site live. Launching the blog that quickly required us to work with outside vendors. Up to now, Orcsweb has hosted the blog through an agreement with Telligent, who is our platform partner.  I'm, willing to bet most companies thinking about blogging are thinking through  the same issues as we had to. I'll blog more about these issues in the future.

For now though, we'll focus on minimizing the impact as much as we can. Thank you for your patience.

As we roll out a beta test of a new design for the Dell.com home page, you'll find a new feature on the page that we think you'll be excited about it, based on the number of you who voted on this idea. It's not a link to IdeaStorm that we've added, but it is a link to our new Community hub page, which contains links to tools like IdeaStorm, Dell Community Forums, Direct2Dell, StudioDell, Ratings and Reviews, and more.

We're working toward presenting these various Community tools in an easier, more navigable way, and we hope to continue to draw more visitors into our online communities. Did you know that the home page of Dell.com gets more than 35 million visitors a week? It's also an entryway to both a corporate and a commerce site. Read more about the changes to our Dell.com home page, and about our efforts to promote IdeaStorm, and other Community tools, more prominently on Laura Thomas' post on Direct2Dell.

Back to the idea: Visible Link to IdeaStorm on Main Dell Site

You've seen the details on Engadget. You might have seen the promotional video we released on YouTube. Today, our XPS M1730 gaming notebook—the machine our development team calls the beast—is available for order in most regions today. We will offer it to customers in Latin America later this year.

So, what makes it a gaming machine?

• It supports the latest Intel processors, including the Core 2 Extreme X7900 processor overclocked to 3.2GHz (Bin+2).
• It supports dual NVIDIA GeForce Go 8700M GT graphics cards in SLI mode.
• All models come with a bright 17" Ultrasharp 1920x1200 display with a 7ms response time.
• It's the first notebook in the world to support AGEIA PhysX 100M mobile physics card.
• It supports two hard drives in a RAID 0 or 1 configuration
• It's the first notebook we've shipped that integrates Logitech's GamePanel LCD, which displays stats and in-game details for a growing list of game titles.
• It also features a full-sized backlit keyboard that has a 10-key number pad

I've seen some stories like this one from Anandtech mentioning that there are only a few titles out there that support the PhysX card. Customers who order it will receive a copy of one of those games—Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. There's more games coming that will also support the card: Unreal Tournament 3, Warmonger, and one that I'm really looking forward to called Crysis.

Update 9-28: Direct2Dell reader Keith correctly pointed out that Crysis will not have PhysX support. My mistake for the oversite—sorry about that. I'm still looking forward to it in November though. LM

To accommodate all these hardware options, this machine is big. It's thick too, and that's because the NVIDIA 8700M GT card can be swapped out for the next-generation SLI card later this year. We begin taking orders today and expect to ship most orders within 10 days from the time the order is processed.

The XPS M1730 unveiling will be part of Dell's activities during the DigitalLife event September 27 - 30 in New York City. Dell and Alienware are sponsoring an on-site gaming tournament there, and Valve Software's Gabe Newell will also show off some content from their upcoming compilation called The Orange Box.

Update 9:30a.m.—Louis Bruno, who's a gamer and also one of the service program managers for XPS desktops and notebooks, provides an inside look at the XPS M1730.

Today we announced our latest environmental initiative—Dell will become the first major computer company to neutralize the carbon impact of its worldwide operations. Carbon neutrality involves taking inventory of our total greenhouse gas emissions related to the operation of Dell facilities and implementing strategies to reduce and eliminate those emissions.

The idea for Dell to go carbon neutral was first posted the day after IdeaStorm launched, and since then, we have made a number of steps toward that goal (see below for previous ideas in action related to carbon neutrality and energy efficiency). But today’s announcement is by far our most bold step since this idea first surfaced on the site, and we appreciate the continued interest in this idea from the IdeaStorm community. Find out the details about our new carbon neutral program in Lionel's blog post, and you can always see Dell’s environmental efforts at www.dell.com/earth.

Today, Michael addressed more than 200 industry leaders, government officials and non-governmental organization (NGO) representatives about the perils that IT complexity holds for businesses and organizations, and the benefits that come with simplifying IT in terms of productivity, energy efficiency and the environment. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)-sponsored discussion was held at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C.

During the discussion, Michael outlined policy recommendations global leaders could adapt to help both governments and businesses become greater environmental stewards. He also shared Dell's latest environmental goal—to make Dell the first major computer company to neutralize the carbon impact of its worldwide operations. 

There's been some community debate around an IdeaStorm idea about carbon neutrality from user smotchberry. Carbon Neutrality involves taking inventory of our total greenhouse gas emissions related to the operation of Dell facilities and implementing strategies to reduce and eliminate those emissions. We will be driving additional energy-efficiency in our operations, maximizing purchases of renewable power and offsetting remaining impacts. In addition to neutralizing the impact of the operation of our facilities, we will also be neutralizing the impacts of employee business air travel.

Dell's working with a team of environmental stakeholders to help shape our offset strategy so that we identify opportunities for offset investments that can be monitored and verified.

This is all part of Dell's broader climate strategy that I blogged about in June. In addition to neutralizing the impact of Dell operations, we continue to require suppliers to account for and report the emissions impacts of their operations, the first step in a long-term goal of helping suppliers reduce emissions  And we remain committed to providing  energy-efficient products. When we sell products that use less energy, we are helping cut emissions associated with the production of electricity those products need.

In this vlog, Dane Parker, director of Dell's Environmental Health & Safety group, talks about what Dell is already doing to improve energy savings. He's followed by the Environmental Policy Analyst for Dell's Sustainable Business, Mark Newton, who discusses Dell's focus on energy-efficient products and explains how we are working with suppliers to improve energy requirements on the supply chain side in the future.

Michael also introduced "Plant a Forest for Me" today, an extension of our "Plant a Tree for Me" program that enables organizations to join efforts to offset carbon impacts associated with the use of IT products and to support sustainably managed reforestation projects.  Founding partners include ABN AMRO, AMD, Ask.com, Salesforce.com and WellPoint.  We look forward to working with other organizations who want to join this important effort.