Right out of the gate, Dell's new line of Dell-branded printers surpassed expectations, selling about twice as many units as forecast, Dell executives said. The company will launch new printer models later in the year, but it does not expect its printer business to have a major impact on its earnings in the near future. Executives said in a conference call that Dell has had one potential severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) case in its Taiwan office. The company closed that office, asking employees to work from home. It will reopen next Monday. Dell's business has otherwise been uninterrupted, Rollins said, because those employees can use Dell's Web-based business tools. The company also recently received a letter from SCO Group. SCO claims that its intellectual property for the Unix operating system has been illegally incorporated into Linux. SCO sued IBM in March, claiming that the company used SCO trade secrets to enhance Linux at IBM. Earlier this month, SCO sent letters to about 1,500 companies warning them that they could be liable for using Linux. But so far, Dell -- which offers Red Hat's version of Linux -- says nothing has changed. "We're communicating to our customers, and we're talking with our Linux partner Red Hat to keep abreast of the situation," Rollins said. "But for now (it's) business as usual for Dell and our customers." Finally, Dell executives confirmed that the company is working on a personal digital assistant (PDA) with built-in wireless networking. Dell's first wireless PDA will most likely incorporate 802.11 wireless networking. But Dell also is looking at a PDA with built-in General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), the executives revealed.
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