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Asus announces an April 2012 launch for the PadFone at Mobile World Congress 2012-- the 4.3" smartphone with a 10.1" docking tablet, which in turn slots into an optional keyboard dock.

Think of it as a smartphone-tablet-notebook combo... or an excuse to sell lots of different docks.

Inside the PadFone are a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor together with an Adreno 225 GPU and 1GB of RAM. The display is a Super AMOLED handling 960x540 resolution, while the OS is Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

The tablet dock (or PadFone Station) has a 10.1" 1280x800 capacitative multi-touch display, with a battery Asus says boosts PadFone life by 500%. Using "Dynamic Display technology," it should alow seamless transition between regular phone and tablet displays.

Meanwhile the keyboard dock is very similar to the one the Transformer Pad Prime uses.

A rather unexpected announcement at MWC is the stylus headset-- allowing users to use the tablet as a sketchbook while handling phone calls (via Bluetooth-connected mic and speaker) when the Padfone is docked.

Go Asus PadFone

HP CEO Meg Whitman went all out to assure partners she "gets the channel" at the HP Global Partners Conference 2012, insisting the company will not turn into the software- and services-led firm Léo Apotheker wanted.

"I get what you do and appreciate the importance of what we do together," Whitman said, before describing HP's 200000-strong global channel partners as a "competitive advantage."

Channel partners have plenty of reason to be wary of HP-- during his reign at the company, Apotheker preferred to focus HP efforts away from hardware and towards enterprise services and software. Whitman does agree on the importance of software, but core printing, PC and infrastructure markets still generate 70% of HP sales.

One of the first decisions Whitman took upon becoming CEO on September 2011 was to reverse plans to sell off the $40BN PSG group in a Great Garage Sale.

As seen in films like Robocop and The Terminator, science fiction predicts an era of augmented reality (AR) lenses streaming data directly into our eyeballs. Now Google is working to turn such fiction into reality, at least according to the New York Times.

The report quotes unnamed Google sources saying the company will start selling high tech glasses with a form of heads-up display by the end of this year. Expected to cost "around the price of current smartphones" (anywhere from $250 to $600) the glasses will supposedly be Android-powered, with a separate mini-display sitting "a few inches" from the wearer's eye.

The glasses should also have 3G or 4G internet connections, motion sensors and GPS, while a low-resolution built-in camera monitors the world and overlays the display with information on the area in real-time.

Interestingly, the NY Times says some top people are working on the project, deep inside the secretive Google X offices-- including co-founder Sergei Brin as "key leader" and Latitude creator Steve Lee. One NY Times source says the glasses will use modified versions of current Google products, such as Google Maps.

Dell misses profit targets for fiscal Q4 2012 due to failing to have enough HDDs for its high margin product line-- with net income reaching $764M, a -18% Y-o-Y decline.

Company EMEA revenues see growth in Q4, increasing by 8% Y-o-Y.

On the other hand Dell revenues for Q4 total $16BN with 2% Y-o-Y growth. Revenues for fiscal 2012 reach $62BN, as Dell shifts is business strategy away from the consumer market to higher-margin enterprise markets.

The Dell consumer segment is down by 2% Y-o-Y (reaching $3.2BN in revenues) while large enterprise and SMB are up by 5% and 6% Y-o-Y respectively. Services, storage and server revenues also show strong growth. The company is also looking to work further on its new software business, particularly following acquisitions such as Compellant.

Enterprise now accounts for 30% of total revenues ($4.9BN)-- and that is where the company will surely start putting more of its attentions.

Go Dell Fiscal 2012 Earnings Report