5:00pm -- Dell's Q2 FY08 webcast is about to start. Until then, get a load of the company's results which were released after market close today:

• Revenue of $14.8 billion
• Operating income of $896 million
• EPS of $0.32 (beating estimates)

5:02pm -- Dell's growing presence in enterprise products and services, improved average selling prices and favorable component costs helped it gain its profit jump this quarter. The computer maker's cash and marketable securities totaled $13.8 billion at the conclusion of the Q2 period.

5:04pm -- Dell's operating expenses inched up in the quarter due to payments for expired in-the-money stock options. This amount was $59 million, or $0.02 per share.

5:07pm -- In addition to stock options, higher costs that affected the computer maker included all that cash incurred in the internal audit committee's investigation into certain accounting and financial reporting matters. Another expense issue for Dell in the quarter was the higher-than-expected headcount it had to paid for (are more layoffs coming?) and associated costs related to investments in sales and customer support.

5:11pm -- Dell is now referencing its attempts to simplify the IT world for customers (too late) is based on several public objectives, like:

• Vostro, the line of notebook and desktop PCs made specifically for the small business. These are products with none of the "junkware" that can clog new systems, and also feature built-in backup tools and administration tools, since many small business do not have dedicated IT staffs.

5:15pm -- Dell has agreed to make some acquisitions. These include:

• ASAP Software, a leading software solutions and licensing services provider
• Privately-held SilverBack Technologies, Inc., a service delivery platform provider for remote monitoring and management of information technology infrastructure such as servers, storage, networks, desktops and notebooks
• Zing Systems Inc., a consumer technology and services company that focuses on always-connected audio and entertainment devices.

5:18pm -- Dell's performance in the Q2 period was derived by a continued focus on server and storage equipment and solutions. Based on the company's released results, Q2 revenue $1.6 billion for these two areas, which is not much considering larger competitor HP's presence in both these markets as well.

5:20pm -- Dell, however, was in the top spot when it came to growth in server units shipped, as the company had a 32.7% market share for the Q2 period. Storage revenues were $600 million for the Q2 period.

5:22pm -- In what I consider to be a pretty cool initiative, the company has announced a partnership with Emerson Network Power in order to market a new service to customers. The new service will attempt to assist customers lower their datacenter power and cooling requirements by up to 42% and increase systems performance by up to 80%. With electricity being one of the largest costs a datacenter has, Dell should milk this for all it's worth.

5:27pm -- more revenue data: mobility products (laptops) produced revenue of $3.9 billion for the Q2 period while desktop PC revenue was $5.0 billion.

5:30pm -- Dell acknowledges a large product backlog in the Q2 period, which was caused raw material delays for the new Inspiron and XPS color notebooks, and specifically with the materials needed to manufacture several colors for some of the newer Inspiron notebook models. Add to that a tightened supply on flat screens for notebook and Dell royally messed up marketing timing against logistics in Q2 when it came to consumer notebooks.

5:32pm -- no share repurchases are coming until the company formally files its 2007 10-K in November of this year.

5:35pm -- as most of us know by now, the company will restate its previously issued financial statements for fiscal 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 (including the interim periods within those years), and the first quarter of fiscal 2007 based on some financial shenanigans in various levels of the company's accounting and executive departments. Due to all these restatements and the worl to correct them all, Dell says that its results for Q2 and all previously announced financial results for the second, third and fourth quarters of fiscal 2007 and first quarter of 2008 are preliminary (not final).

5:37pm -- I guess the company won't be producing any verifiable numbers until all the financials are completely corrected for all these years and changes to many quarters within all those years are complete. When will that happen? Who knows.