Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) makes amazing machines with the best design and the most clever marketing. However Apple does it, the company wraps the entire package from conception to post-sale in a way not many other companies can. Dare I say, no other company. That does come at a price, however. Apple prides itself in not making commodity equipment, even though the hardware used under the hood of many of their products is indeed commodity goods.

Apple retail prices are significantly higher than the competition (if you want to call it that). In other words, Apple's products demand higher prices based on what I referenced in the first paragraph. Somehow, the company is so successful that it can grow its business - with higher prices in most cases - than the competition, and even in dire economic times. But, the company is not superhuman. Apple's Mac sales are nosediving just like the rest of the PC industry, signaling that even Apple is not immune to the incredibly harsh recession we're all in at the moment.

Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) may be back on track. Data from research firm IDC shows that, in the fourth quarter, Dell shipped 17.1 percent more PCs worldwide in the quarter than in the year-earlier period, for a total of 11.3 million units and 14.6 percent of the global PC market, according to Reuters. The company also had strong results in the U.S.

It may be that Dell's program to sell PCs through retail outlets is starting to show results, but that would not account for the global change. The company has attempted to add new models and pair that with aggressive pricing. That is driving growth, which may be coming at the expense of rival Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ).

If the IDC figures are accurate, Dell's numbers for the last quarter of 2007 should be better than expected.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Reuters makes the argument that strong numbers from HP (NYSE: HPQ) will cause the market to expect more from Dell (NASDAQ: DELL). The news service says HP "results may raise the bar for competitor Dell, which is more vulnerable to U.S. economic woes and reports earnings next week." Dell does get 85% of its sales from the U.S. market.

Wall Street is not so stupid that it has missed the vulnerability in the Dell model. HP's shares are up more than 20% so far this year. Dell's are only up 5%.

Dell only needs to report very modest numbers to please investors. Its new program to sell to consumers through retail outlets is only a year old and its push into key markets like China is in the early stages.

The question investors will have for Dell management is: what does 2008 look like? If the PC company cannot begin to pick up shares from HP, Lenovo, and Acer by then, the turnaround is no turnaround. It will have turned out to be a nice try.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) continues to beat up on beleaguered smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE: AMD), and the world's largest chip maker has now upped its outlook for the third quarter, as laptop computer sales increase and Intel takes back some market share it lost to AMD in 2006.

Intel's third quarter revenue outlook is $9.4 billion to $9.8 billion, up from its earlier projection of $9.0 billion to $9.6 billion. Intel also stated that it expects gross margin to be about 52% in the quarter. With analysts already pegging Q3 sales at $9.33 billion, this increased outlook from the chip giant is great news for investors, although CEO Paul Otellini did not expand on the specifics around the increase other than to hint at increased forecasts of PC shipments for the quarter.

This makes sense, as Intel's rising market share will sail along with those increased shipments if in fact they materialize as forecast. But remember, the holiday shopping season is coming up, and the consumer segment is the hot one in PC sales right now, not the corporate segment. Come holiday shopping time, laptop shipments are set to blaze once again. Add in Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) growing Mac sales -- which now all ship with Intel chips -- and there you go.

After Intel gained about 6% of share from AMD in the first quarter of 2007, the company regained enough of the market to pin AMD with the lowest market share in more than a decade. Intel's Core Duo chips are increasingly shipping in mid-range and higher-end laptop systems, even with AMD's Turion dual-core chips in the same market segment and shipping with all major laptop brands. Come October 16, we'll see how Intel fared in the current quarter, but right now the chipmaker's return to former glory is definitely on track, much to the chagrin of AMD.