Dell will migrate all production of computer systems for customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) from Limerick to its Polish facility and third-party manufacturing partners over the next year.

The manufacturing migration will be completed in a phased transition during 2009 and is among a series of steps Dell is taking to simplify operations, improve productivity, reduce costs and deliver even higher levels of customer satisfaction. The move is part of a $3 billion cost-reduction initiative the company announced last year and is being made as a result of an ongoing comprehensive review of Dell’s global supply chain.

“We are proud of our 18-year tenure as a major manufacturer in Ireland,” said Sean Corkery, vice president of operations, EMEA. “This is a difficult decision, but the right one for Dell to become even more competitive, and deliver greater value to customers in the region.”

Dell expects to reduce its Limerick manufacturing workforce by about 1,900 employees over the next 12 months. The initial release of employees will occur in April, with the full transition expected to be completed by January 2010. Affected workers will receive a competitive severance package and career outplacement assistance as they transition from the company.

“We will treat affected employees with dignity and respect and offer them every practical support through this extended transition period to minimize the impact on them,” said Mr. Corkery. “We appreciate the support from the Irish government and the people of Limerick over these many years.”

Dell’s employees in Limerick will continue to coordinate EMEA manufacturing, logistics and supply chain activities across a range of functions including product development, engineering, procurement and logistics. The company’s Global Innovation Solutions Center and EMEA Command Center will remain in Limerick. Dell continues its significant sales, marketing and support activities in Cherrywood, Dublin.

I am currently moving our blog from Blogger to WordPress, please bear with us as we make design adjustments to integrate with new template system, and forgive interim lack of jazz while we ensure we have all content in place and get a chance to re-label posts and fix design issues. This decision came after the hassles of using a hosted blog service and the bugs Blogger kept throwing up when trying to post.

First impressions of the new WordPress are good, it has come along way since the early version I used a few years and would reccommend to clients and colleagues as the blogging software du jour.

Blue Star has had a recent web development project nominated for a Golden Spider award. The site up for nomination is Personal Newspaper Gifts.ie which is up for Best e-Business award. The site allows customers to create their own novelty newspaper front page which they will receive in the post framed, or in a postal tube. The website allows for a variety of newspaper banners, a large selection of prewritten articles that can be edited easily by replacing ‘hotspot’ keywords. A photo can be uploaded and other changes can also be made.

Blue Star are naturally delighted to see our work recognised at such a high standard and to be in line for such a prestigous award.

We are currently developing a user control panel for our clients at http://accounts.bluestar.ie. This will allow clients to access their account with Blue Star and view the services they are subscribed to along with details on current and previous projects with status updates.

Clients can view their domains, hosting, email plans, etc. They will also have the option of renewing and paying for services through the control panel using a credit card.

The system is currently in beta and only open to testers, estimated live date is July 2008. Existing clients will receive login details over the next two months as part of a phased implementation.