In the advertising world, the big news last week was of course Dell's decision to hand their $4.5 billion global marketing services account to agency holding company WPP Group after what has been called a huge shootout between the giant agency holding companies including Interpublic, among others. The plan calls for WPP to build out a new agency that will be staffed by upwards of 1,000 marketing and analytical professionals in order to service the Dell business on a global basis. Dell has reported previously that it worked with hundreds of agencies and specialty service providers on a global basis and it needed to aggressively "shrink" the list in order to create more efficiencies. I dunno, for some reason, $4.5 billion (of course that is the account value, remember this is ad world where everything is grossly inflated, the actual revenues WPP can expect is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 million a year for three years) seems out whack. It's a huge number, but when you look at the sagging company's revenues it's not so big. I think the real challenge will be staffing this new agency with the right set of individuals who understand what it takes to get a brand's luster back. These need to be experienced brand marketers who have been through similar type engagements in the past. All that said, the number one computer company among teens and college students needs some serious help and they need it seriously fast. We expect their downward spiral to continue through next year and by the spring, they will drop to the third in market share for laptops behind Apple and HP and second in desktops behind HP.