San Francisco  - US computer maker Dell is planning to sell its factories around the world to contract manufacturers within 18 months in a bid to save more than 3 billion dollars in costs, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Most of the factories would be sold to manufacturers in low-cost Asian countries, who would then produce computers for the Texas-based company, the report said.

San Francisco  - Computer maker Dell posted lower quarterly profits Thursday, but said sales increased more than expected as the company tries to overtake Hewlett Packard as the world's biggest computer company.

The Round Rock, Texas-based company reported net income of 616 million dollars, or 31 cents per share, down 17 per cent from a profit of 746 million dollars, or 33 cents per share, that the company reported a year ago.

Sales in the quarter rose 11 per cent to 16.43 billion dollars from 14.77 billion dollars in the same period last year.

A Mini Desktop, which perfectly fits the demands of today, has been launched by the Round-Rock-based computer maker Dell. The name of the desktop is the Studio Hybrid, which is not only ultra small but also ultra green. The new system, according to the company would not only consume 705 less power than a standard tower desktop, but also comes with the packaging, 95% of which is recyclable.

Another feature of the Studio Hybrid is that it is 80% smaller than a standard tower desktop. The desktop is designed on an Intel platform and is powered by Pentium dual-core and Core 2 Duo processors. It supports a RAM of 4GB and it can additionally be equipped with 320 GB hard drives.

Dell has decided to come back to the MP3 player market.

However, the company has not disclosed much information about its plans.

Several Dell functionaries said that the company has been creating a digital music player, which will hit market by September.

The company also said that the device would cost below $100.

Introducing the player together with an online download service and related software would be part of a plan that Dell Chief Executive Michael Dell hopes will take the company into a wider range of consumer markets than it has served earlier.

In order to woo gamers, the largest seller of PCs and servers, Dell has

Several makers have scrambled to add up Blu-ray drives/players in their