Dell (DELL) still sells billions of dollars per quarter in PCs, servers and business services, but who is the company? In January 2007, when Michael Dell returned to the company he founded, sales were dragging and Dell was losing its edge. Still, in 2009, Taiwan's Acer bypassed Dell to become the second-largest PC manufacturer in the U.S.

It's some time now that the company has been seen as a laggard, a "me too" follower without much real innovation. Even the slimmest laptop PC ever made didn't quite make a splash. And recently, Dell decided to enter the cellphone market, but with what looks like just another product in a sea of competition.

Analyst Upgrades

• Baird upgraded United Parcel Service (UPS) to outperform from neutral based on operating leverage, improving industry pricing and exposure to a cyclical recovery. The firm raised its target to $70 from $61.
• JMP Securities upgraded Qualcomm (QCOM) following positive wireless industry checks. The firm, which has a $60 target on the stock, believes Qualcomm is the best positioned wireless company to enable 3G deployments and the early ramp of 4G technology.
• Credit Suisse has taken a more positive stance on the potash sector given the settlement of the Chinese contracts and improving near-term fundamentals. The firm upgraded Potash (POT) to outperform from neutral and raised its price target to $135 from $119. Credit Suisse also raised Intrepid Potash (IPI) to neutral from underperform and raised its price target to $30 from $28.
• Avery Dennison (AVY) was raised to outperform from neutral at Baird.
• Biogen Idec (BIIB) was upgraded at BofA/Merrill to neutral from underperform.
• RadioShack (RSH) was upgraded to conviction buy from neutral at Goldman.

Apple (AAPL) got an early Christmas present, as its shares hit an all-time high on Thursday. The excitement over its much-anticipated tablet computer is growing, and word is a major launch event is planned for the device in January (keep an eye on San Francisco). Apple still hasn't admitted to the project, but that didn't manage to dampen speculation.

Yair Reiner of Oppenheimer said in a note to investors this month that Apple could have a tablet out on the streets by the beginning of April. Brian Marshall, an analyst at Broadpoint AmTech, sees the product reaching shelves by the end of the first quarter. Marshall sees the stock continuing to push upward next year, as "people are coming back to the well."

"There is a new game changer in the works: the Windows 7 release," says Toby Smith, who believes we could be in the early stages of a tech recovery.

In his ChangeWave Investing, he adds, "Dell (DELL) will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Windows 7 upgrade cycle." "In a recent speech, Dell CEO Michael Dell joined the chorus of top tech leaders when he said, 'I think there is a very powerful refresh cycle that is coming.'

Dell (DELL) has been beat up in the last few years as it has struggled to gain market share, compete at retail with its consumer PCs and take on a resurgent Acer, which recently replaced it as the world's second-largest manufacturer of PCs. One thing Dell is doing right: using social networking to make sales that would have been most likely lost otherwise.

Dell's Twitter account for its outlet (used and returned) product has generated $6.5 million for the company since its inception. A hundred or so of Dell's employees tweet at its outlet account daily as a way to move product at a discount. Apparently, it works well. Dell also uses Twitter accounts in Brazil and Canada, which contributed to that sales figure as well.

With close to 60 million users, Twitter is a force corporate marketing departments just can't ignore. The reach offered by this microblogging platform is profound, and skipping it means yielding digital turf to the competition.

Yet, as the country's major brands have flocked to Twitter, not all have mastered it. Some merely push headlines and deals, while others have used it as a way to open a dialogue with their customers, build relationships and ultimately grow their businesses. A study by The Big Money sought to determine the dozen companies that are mastering Twitter and why they are the masters.

Dell (DELL), which has struggled as of late in keeping up with PC market leader Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and a resurgent Acer, will be selling one of its factories in Poland to Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn. Along with the sale, 1,600 Dell employees at that facility will become employees of Foxconn.

Stock markets go through many different cycles. In each one, there are one or two elements that make a successful investment. For example, interest rates are always a concern for financial institutions or companies that borrow a large amount of money. For these groups, the higher interest rates go, the lower profits will most likely be unless they are able to raise prices and/or cut costs faster than interest rates rise.

Right now, the main focus for most investors should be revenues. That's because without increasing revenues, there is an absolute amount of profits that any company can achieve. Simply by cutting costs, a company can increase profits, up to a point. But eventually lowering expenses isn't enough because there are only so many costs that can be cut before a product or service begins to weaken and affect sales.

It's a slow day in the options market, and investors are expecting a slow couple of months in terms of Dell (DELL) price action - and they are taking on a lot of risk to bet on this.

The January 14 straddle has been active today. (A straddle is the simultaneous purchase or sale of a call and put with the same expiration date and same strike price). In this case, the straddle was sold 8,000 times for $1.47 (an average of 55 cents for the out-of-the-money put and an average price of 92 cents for the in-the-money call). The volume crossed the tape around 11:00 AM Eastern time in two large blocks of 4,000 straddles.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), the famous maker of printers and PCs, and a colleague of entities such as Microsoft (MSFT), Dell (DELL), and International Business Machines (IBM), issued Q4 results on Monday after the end of the trading day. Revenues didn't impress me, as sales saw a decline of 8%. Net income, however, was better. On an adjusted basis, earnings per share increased 11% to $1.14.

Also doing well was the operating margin. The adjusted metric increased 170 basis points during the quarter. The annual statement of cash flows should look good to any long-term shareholder. Management still had cash left over from operations after share repurchases, dividend obligations, and capital spending.

Dell, Inc. (DELL) has been beaten up verbally recently, and its stock price has plummeted as well. The company's latest quarter was nothing to write home about, and there is talk that Dell's edge has long since been dulled and the company is a lumbering giant unable to do anything more than sell and service commodity products. The recent Perot Systems acquisition is more a defensive move than an offensive one, for example. So, is Dell floundering? In many ways, definitely yes.

Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage on BloggingStocks:

• ADC Telecommunications Inc. (ADCT) posted a surprise net loss for Q4 and predicted a loss in Q1.
• BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. (BJ) shares fell after Q3 earnings met expectations and offered guidance for FY.
• Dell Inc. (DELL) posted lower-than-expected Q3 earnings, prompting a sell-off of shares.
• Foot Locker Inc. (FL) said Q3 earnings slumped more than analysts' forecast, sending shares lower.
• Gap Inc. (GPS) reported growth of EPS and revenue in Q3 and announced a share buyback program.

Today was a very unusual day. There was no real economic data to absorb. And the markets did see some unusual options trading ahead of expiration date at 4:00 PM today. Disappointing earnings kept a negative bias in the air despite a brief recovery into positive territory in the final hour today... Yet the negative close seemed almost a certain fate today.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 10,318.16 -14.28 (-0.14%)
S&P 500 1,091.37 -3.53 (-0.32%)
Nasdaq 2,146.04 -10.78 (-0.50%)

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TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says traders who focus on the negative will pounce on this poor report.

Thanks for nothing, Dell (DELL) (Cramer's Take)! Given that this market seems to care less about the good like NetApp (NTAP) (Cramer's Take), Ross Stores (ROST) (Cramer's Take) or Limited (LTD) (Cramer's Take) and is focused on the bad, like the semi-downgrade from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, I am sure that Dell will be viewed as part and parcel with the downgrade.

I can't stand Dell. I actually slam it in Getting Back to Even, taking a chance that it would get its act together and make me look bad on the very quarter the book is released. Looks like that was a lot of worry for nothing.

After-hours traders punished Dell (DELL) stock Thursday, following a weak third quarter earnings report from the technology giant.

Going into the afternoon earnings release, analysts had been expecting to see the company show earnings of 28 cents per share. Actual earnings came in much lower at 23 cents per share.