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Dell releases poor profit figures

Dell Inc., posted preliminary third-quarter earnings below expectations after weak sales in U.S. and Britain. Dell also says it would take charges of about $450 million in the third quarter for costs of repairing some computer systems for customers, cutting jobs and restructuring units.

"They were seeing some weakness in desktop and strength in notebooks, but not enough to offset the weakness in desktop," analyst Shaw Wu of American Technology Research says after Dell`s announcement. "Dell`s problem is that it`s not differentiated enough" from competitors.

The company said it expects to report revenue of $13.9 billion, below its earlier forecast of $14.1 billion to $14.5 billion and analysts` $14.3 billion estimate. U.S. consumer and British unit sales "fell short of expectations," Dell says.