I've been keeping a keen eye on Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) for quite a while, and the recent admission from the company about its internal financial accounting problems was long, long overdue. All things considered, the $150 million revenue restatement that spanned almost five years was a pittance compared to much larger accounting scandals the world has seen from other public companies. But that news overshadowed Dell's larger problem that is still in flux -- how to re-ignite growth.

It's true that the company surprised the market with a quarterly profit that was higher than expected and this was a good thing for the company. Did Dell all of a sudden have a great sales quarter? Not really, as much of that profit came from cost cutting under returning CEO Michael Dell along with server sales in the corporate sector -- a mainstay for Dell. But competitor Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) is still killing it in many categories where both companies operate.

For years, I've been of the opinion that Dell should re-enter the retail store consumer space with slick and elegant notebook PCs way back. It's corporate sales won't keep HP-like growth going, but if Dell can get its butt in gear and get its new and colorful laptop PCs on retail shelves, it may stand a chance. Dell's "direct only" model is still good but it's not the only leg the company needs to grow, and it knows this.

The retail experiment with selling excess and older Dimension desktop systems to Wal-Mart to gain a retail presence is a good start, but there is much more. Yes, Dell is making progress, but it could be making so much more with a full lineup of cutting-edge and price-sensitive laptop systems in many large U.S. retailers. Otherwise, HP and Taiwan's Acer will continue to eat its lunch in terms of consumer market share and shipment growth throughout 2008.

Michael Dell said this week that the company bearing his name "has a long way to go" to make up for lost ground. In recent years, the computer maker saw renewed competition eating away into its market share and stealing business away while many areas inside Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) languished under former CEO Kevin Rollins. From customer service issues, layoff announcements to boring product designs, Dell's recent fortunes had not been anything worthy of writing home about. That has changed in recent months, however.

Yesterday in New York, Dell kicked off a new product line, Vostro, meant for small businesses with fewer than 25 people. In many cases, these companies do not have a dedicated IT support staff, so these Vostro PCs will do away with much of the software that normally comes on Dell's consumer PCs and will feature more business-friendly software geared towards easy networking and backup capability. Are these just re-branded existing laptop systems? Perhaps, although Dell says the line is "entirely new". It is the marketing and the software bundles installed on them make them different regardless.

Dell went as far as to say that with the new product line launch it aims to capture way more than its current 16.2% market share of companies with less than 100 employees. A Dell representative stated that "Given the amount of resources we've allocated to this, it wouldn't be viable if we didn't gain market share." Sounds like Dell has poured some significant resources in Vostro, although an exact figure was not given. Dell's recent launch of newer (and way sleeker) XPS laptop systems and this newer Vostro line are both good moves for increasing its market share. In other news, Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) is most definitely not sitting still after unseating Dell last year as the world's largest PC maker. Story at 11...