Photo by DeclanTM on flickr

"We're decreasing our head count," Dell told the Associated Press. "It's declined in the past two quarters and it will decline again in the first quarter. And we will go past the 8,800 target previously discussed as we achieve everything that I'm outlining today."

This week, Dell announced plans to cut 900 jobs in Austin by closing the Topfer Manufacturing Center on Howard Lane.

Dell chief financial officer Donald Carty told analysts Thursday that 5.500 jobs have been cut since the original target was announced, with 1,000 more cuts to come this quarter.

While company executives talked about Dell's key growth initiatives -- notebooks, emerging countries, consumer, enterprise and small-medium business -- there was also discussion about how the company has moved away from the build-to-order model and will offer more pre-packaged models than in the past. Dell also has opened up its direct-sales-only approach and began putting its machines into Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Staples.

"We have identified a very significant opportunity here and are aggressively going after it," Dell said. "To be very clear, we are not satisfied with the current state of affairs and we are on a mission to address this."