DELL Computer will create more than 100 full-time jobs at its call centre in Bray, Co Wicklow, and dozens more temporary positions at its manufacturing facility in Limerick, the company's head of European operations said yesterday, writes Jamie Smyth.

Mr Paul Bell said Dell was adding extra sales and technical support staff at its call centre in Bray following strong revenue growth over the past few quarters.

Many of the jobs would be in highly skilled positions at Dell's new multilingual centre that offers technical support services for the firm's server and storage products, he said.

Mr Bell said the firm had agreed to hire "north of 100 full-time staff". Industry sources suggested yesterday the final figure would be close to 200.

"We try to be as good a partner as we can with IDA Ireland by adding higher skilled jobs to the economy," said Mr Bell. "Our server and storage business is going well and we are offering technical support in German, French, Italian and English."

Dell will also hire dozens of extra contractors at its Limerick manufacturing facility to cope with the expected rise in seasonal demand in the period to Christmas.

"Every year you will see more buying at Christmas... although that doesn't mean you will see a recovery year-on-year," said Mr Bell.

Dell's financial results, released late on Thursday, show the Texas-based firm once again bucked the trend in the technology sector by reporting higher quarterly profits and raised expectations for revenue in the current quarter.

Dell, which already employs almost 4,500 staff in Bray, Dublin and Limerick, reported earnings of 19 cents per share on net income of $501 million (€509 million), compared with a loss of $101 million, or 4 cents per share, a year earlier.

Mr Bell said the good results reflected the fact that many new customers had chosen Dell during the quarter rather than any recovery in the general economy.

"We're outperforming the competition and more people are saying Dell is a bastion of stability and good quality while there is a lot of turmoil among the alternatives," he said.

"We're up two market share points year-on-year and the rest of the top 10 collectively are down two so there is definitely a swap between us and anyone else."

But Mr Bell would not comment on how protracted merger negotiations between Dell's bitter rivals HP and Compaq had helped the firm boost its sales.

"It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation; after all why did the firms merge in the first place? Because they were struggling on their own," said Mr Bell.

Dell's US and Asian operations reported 23 per cent and 12 per cent shipment growth, outperforming Europe, Middle East and Africa, which recorded shipment growth of just 5 per cent for Dell.

Mr Bell said the more modest regional performance by Dell in Europe compared to other regions reflected the fact that the European market lagged the US market by a few quarters.

The US market had declined very sharply last year while the European downturn took an extra two quarters to come through, he added.

Mr Bell said the corporate market remained soft globally but government, education and consumer business was holding up. "We're looking for a signal of recovery but we haven't seen much yet. It's still steady."

Mr Bell confirmed Dell would enter the printer and handheld computing market with the release of Dell-branded personal digital assistants and printer products. "We're thinking about the next five years and how we can double the company's size," said Mr Bell. "We think we can bring the Dell model of efficient production to these markets."