Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) has filed all of its past due quarterly financial statements with the SEC. That means that the Nasdaq no longer has a reason to delist that company. It also means that the PC company can begin its huge share buyback program again.

Dell sent in the filings after an investigation "found that senior executives and other employees manipulated the company's financial statements to give the appearance of hitting quarterly performance goals," according to The Wall Street Journal [subscription required]. The adjustment to net income for the four years was a modest $92 million.

In 2005, Dell's board had set up a plan to buy back as much as $10 billion worth of shares. But the investigation of accounting problems covered fiscal years 2003 through 2006, and the program was suspended.

With a market cap of $66 billion, buying $10 billion in shares could give earnings per share a very big lift.

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

It looks like Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) is whipping up again on competitor Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) after taking the top spot in global PC sales last year. First quarter of 2007 data indicates that HP seems to be growing very nicely while Dell is growing backwards. HP saw first-quarter PC shipments go up by 28.2% (year-over-year), taking its global market share from 16.5% to 19.1%. At the same time, Dell's global PC shipments declined by 6.9% as its market share went from 18.2% to 15.2%.

The Taiwanese PC maker, Acer, nosed in on the third spot (held by China's Lenovo Group) with 6.7% market share. Acer has made great strides in recent years and has become the fastest-growing computer manufacturer in many respects. Meanwhile, HP's retooling since Mark Hurd came on-board is showing fantastic results as of late, with HP stabilizing in sales and profit and wrestling that top crown away from Dell.

It's been interesting to watch the inversely-proportionate relationship going on between HP and Dell since 2005. While Dell held the top spot back then, chinks in its armor were starting to show -- among them, bad (bad) customer support and a stinky reputation that lingers with it to this day. HP, meanwhile, was re-engineering in order to knock Dell back down. It did precisely that in 2006 and hasn't looked back. Hurd, ever the coy CEO, knows exactly what he's doing. The only question left o Michael Dell (now CEO of Dell again) is this: Can that spicy new executive team you have lined up get Dell back on the right track?.