Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) has perched precariously at the #2 spot among the world's largest PC manufacturers after larger rival Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ) passed it as the #1 several years ago.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) is going to latch onto the Chinese Government's subsidy of almost $3 billion to that country's farmers. That's right -- perhaps Dell believes those farmers would like to have PCs with that money instead of equipment that could have a more direct impact on the world's third-largest economy.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) indicated on Tuesday that it wold continue outsourcing what it could in relation to new product launches. As the company continues to try and save another billion in costs, Dell's CFO told an audience that "one new computer or server at a time" would be thrown to a manufacturing partner for production.

What used to be Dell's bread-and-butter -- internal, made-to-order product manufacturing -- is slowly falling by the wayside.

Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) is taking a page from the auto industry, as the computer maker has introduced 0% financing for its small business customers. The world's second-largest computer maker already has the promotion available for large business customers, but now anyone purchasing at least $25,000 worth of equipment can finance their Dell purchase with no finance charges.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) has recently announced the release of some new laptop designs. The thing is, though, that these appear to be just painted/designed laptop covers on existing laptop PCs, and not new systems with some new art. In other words, is Dell just pushing out boring models with new paint jobs?

Ed Boyd, the newer design lab head who was hired in 2007 to try and transform the boring commodity boxes Dell has cranked out by the millions into something that is really a competitive advantage among a sea of PC designs. I doubt that's what Dell execs were expecting, but within just over a week, Dell will release these new designs with abstract paint jobs and funky colors -- not just different laptop lid colors -- to the market. Customers will pay an extra $75 for the newer designs. That's in addition to the current $699 starting price for Dell's entry-level consumer laptop systems.

So far, this is just another attempt to spice up the rather boring PC by adding a literal splash of color. Next year, Boyd plans on all kinds of artsy combinations by letting customers design their own PC art. That will be an effort to watch, as it will be a first from a mainstream PC maker. It's be hard to see customers flocking to Dell PCs from the competition just to be able and design their own color scheme, but consumers are fickle and unpredictable -- so who knows.

Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) has been known in the last three of four years as a "me too" PC manufacturer. Sure, it was the world's largest PC maker until rival Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ) stole that crown in 2006 and hasn't looked back. When Dell founder Michael Dell came back to the CEO spot in January 2007, his resultant changes has given Dell the push it needed. Some changes, though, are just plain head-scratching.

Unlike the gutsy and excellent move back onto the retail shelf, Dell announced last week that it would allow DVD-quality downloads from partner CinemaNow to be downloaded and then burned to a special "Qflix" DVD hardware drive. This new drive will apparently sell for $120 and will be available as an option on most newer Dell laptop models. The question is this: does Dell really see a market need for yet another DVD standard to allow the 10-step process of getting digital content from a partner to a DVD disc for some kind of archival purpose by any of its customers?

The point here is that Dell wants to be the customer's source for downloading actual DVD content (complete with menus, alternate audio and all the other DVD goodies) to your PC. Unless you're extremely patient, I can only imagine the length of time it will take to "download" all this to a Dell PC. Perhaps a workday? The point is that until we have a huge increase in broadband internet speeds in the U.S. for the consumer market and consumers expect functionality like this to be free, something like this will flop except for the early adopter and geek crowd. But hey, that's never stopped a PC maker from exploring odd niche product categories before, right?

Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL), like any large company, gets its fair share of customer complaints. From the way its machines operate to the way certain consumer financial transactions are handled, the company has seen a spike in complaints in recent years, largely due to the subpar quality of its customer support infrastructure. This fact has been well-publicized and the company, in turn, has made efforts to improve things. At the same time, Dell is closing down customer service centers and re-organizing staff in an effort to curb costs.

It appears that there are so many complaints in New York that the state attorney general has set up a website specifically to listen to and collect customer complaints related to Dell's services. Included in this mix are complaints about Dell's consumer financial services and its "bait-n-switch" approach to changing customer credit arrangements without their consent.

This is unfortunate. When the attorney general for a very large U.S. state has to create a special website to collect complaints about any company, something's amiss. What on earth could have led to such a deep problem with Dell's customer service? Only the customers know that, and pretty soon, those in New York will most likely be filling out the online complaint forms. Dell has made many moves to improve its service and listen to customers, but it will take a while to see if those moves actually work properly.

Dell (NASDAQ:DELL)has started listening to the vocal minority and will offer Linux as a pre-installed operating system option on newer PCs. This isn't exactly news, but the "flavor" of Linux that Dell has chosen sounds the most appropriate. Ubuntu Linux is becoming one of the more popular choices since it is so easy to use, and is strikingly similar to Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows in the "look and feel" department.

However, I still maintain that the majority of customers will continue to prefer Microsoft's Windows for the long term. From what I've seen, trying to get the mainstream Windows customer to try another operating system is like pulling teeth: people don't like change (even when it is better). Ubuntu will always feed a need for the cost-conscious (it's free) and hobbyist computer crowd, and it's used in come corporate environments and schools as well. But the corporate environment and most home environments? Nope.

At the end of May, Dell will begin offering Ubuntu's latest version on some of its PCs. So, even though I don't expect mass defections from folks buying Windows PCs to newer Ubuntu PCs, the significance of this is if Dell's relationship with Microsoft will suffer from this. Microsoft is tight-fisted when it comes to competitive operating systems, so if Linux variants start becoming more visible and commonplace on machines from large Windows vendors, what will Ole' Softie have to say? So far, the giant remains docile.