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Dell Inc. will start offering the Linux operating system pre-installed on its PCs and notebooks in response to customer demand, the company said Wednesday.

In an announcement on Dell’s IdeaStorm website, the company said it would provide more detail on which hardware systems will be available with Linux in the coming weeks.

Linux is the free operating system developed by volunteer programmers around the world and is seen as a low-cost alternative to market-leader Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

A number of different versions of Linux are available, including Canonical Ltd.’s Ubuntu, Novell’s OpenSUSE and Red Hat’s Fedora.

Dell said it hasn’t decided which distributionsit willoffer, but said customers are more concerned about driver compatibility and support than they are about which distribution Dell would choose for its PCs and notebooks.

Dell had previously offered Linux support on its servers and with its Precision workstation line, but said it is making the move to offer it on PCs and notebooks in response to a poll of customers earlier this month.

The companypointed out that more than 70 per cent of over 100,000 respondents said they would use a Dell system with a Linux operating system for both home and office use, according to a survey conducted earlier this month.

The move could open a new market for the computer maker, which has struggled in the past year with poor sales.

Company founder Michael Dell returned to the company as CEO earlier this year after the company announced its fourth-quarter profits had plunged to $673 million US, compared to $1.01 billion a year earlier.

Canadian housing starts slowed by about 21 per cent in February, failing tokeep upa pace set in a mild January.

The figure reportedThursday by theCanada Mortgage and Housing Corp. may be a blip inan otherwisestrongCanadian housing market,exempt so far from some of the credit headaches plaguing the U.S. market.

A separate report by Statistics Canada on Thursday showed prices of new homes rising moderatelyacross most of the country between December and January, maintainingyear-over-year increasesof more than10 per cent.

The biggestjumps werewere in Edmonton and Calgary, where the 12-month gains exceeded 40 per cent.

TheCMHC report shows builders beginning work on houses and apartments in Februaryat a rate that would yield about 196,200 units a year, down from 248,500in January. The figures are statisticallyadjusted to remove normal seasonal variations.

Even so, thefederal agency expects the year to turn out better thanits report suggests.

“Following the unusually strong surge in construction activity in January, which was partly attributable to the unseasonably warm weather, housing starts in February returned to levels more in line with expectations,”CMHC economist Bob Dugan said in a statement.

“Housing starts are likely to increase in the coming months and are forecasted to reach 209,500units in 2007.”

BMO Capital Markets economist Bart Meleksaid the 21-per-cent drop was much larger than expected butwas notcause for alarm in achilly Feburary after a January thaw.

In a commentary on Thursday,Melekcalled it “a giving-back of borrowed activity” that “does not point to a deepening downward trend.”

In the CMHC report, multiple-family projects in urban areas showed some of the sharpest declines in February,down 33 per cent from January on a seasonally adjusted basis There were declines in all regions except in the Atlantic, which showed a 15.6-per-cent increase.

Urban single-family home starts fell12.6per cent amid slowdowns everywhere but British Columbia, wherethe rate wasunchanged from January.

The Statistics Canada reporton contractors’ selling prices showed a January-to-January national increase of10.1 per cent, down froma December-to-December figure of 10.7 per cent.

The national increase from December to January was 0.3 per cent.

Edmonton’s prices showed a one-month gain of 1.6 per cent and a 12-month gain of 40.2 per cent. Calgary’sfigures were 0.8 per cent and 40.8 per cent.

Computer hackers targeting the cut-price fashion retailer TK Maxx have stolen information from 45.7m credit and debit cards on both sides of the Atlantic, in one of the biggest electronic heists of its kind.

TK Maxx’s American parent company, TJX, revealed the extent of the “unauthorised intrusion” in its annual report yesterday, which said somebody had used sophisticated software to access its data centres in Watford and in Framingham, near Boston.

The hacker was able to snatch potentially sensitive details from four years of transactions up to December last year, including information from shoppers who visited the company’s 210 department stores in Britain.

“We suspect that customer data for payment card transactions at TK Maxx stores in the UK and Ireland has been stolen,” said the company. “We suspect that these files contained payment card transaction data, some or all of which could have been unencrypted and unmasked.”

Names, card numbers and personal data were stolen - including, in the case of American shoppers, social security numbers.

The company said there was evidence that the information had been used for fraudulent transactions. Six people were charged in Florida last week with using TJX data to buy $1m in Wal-Mart gift cards which were used to pay for electronics and jewellery.

Of the details stolen in both Britain and America, 30.6m came from cards which had expired at the time of the breach, while 15m were unexpired. Of those still valid, 3.8m had “masked” or encrypted information but 11.2m had clearly accessible data.

TJX became suspicious a week before Christmas when it discovered unfamiliar software on its computer systems. The company called in experts from IBM and General Dynamics and notified the US secret service a few days later.

When the scale of the breach became clear, TJX informed the Metropolitan Police and Britain’s information commissioner, in addition to law enforcement bodies in the US and Canada.

The company is already facing lawsuits from angry shoppers, banks and credit card companies and has set aside $5m to cover the cost of the investigation.

Banks, which have been forced to re-issue debit and credit cards to affected customers, have been critical of the company, which initially disclosed that it had a problem in January but then said that the amount of information stolen was “substantially less than millions”.

Bruce Spitzer, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Bankers Association, told the Boston Herald that the firm had not been very forthcoming about the size of the breach, adding: “They didn’t have good systems in December, and obviously they didn’t have them for years before.”

The US firm opened its first British store in 1994 and has become renowned for offering bargain prices on clothing from designer labels such as Armani, Calvin Klein and DKNY.

In a message on TK Maxx’s website, the group’s chief executive, Carol Meyrowitz, has offered a personal apology to customers and has provided a free phone number for anybody who believes they may have been affected: 0800 779015.

The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool is prepared to sell nine grain elevators and one of its port terminals so it can pursue a hostile bid for Agricore United.

The Canadian Competition Bureau has said it would approve the deal if the Pool got rid of some of its assets.

As a result, the Pool announced Wednesday that Cargill Ltd. would buy the nine elevators five in Alberta, three in Saskatchewan and one in Manitoba if the Pool acquires them from Agricore.

Agricoreelevators the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool wants to sellto Cargill
Davidson, Sask. (grain handling/crop input)
Kindersley, Sask. (grain handling/crop input)
Congress, Sask. (grain handling/crop input)
Vermilion,Alta. (grain handling)
Camrose, Alta. (grain handling/crop input)
Blackie, Alta. (grain handling)
Viking, Alta. (grain handling)
Equity, Alta. (grain handling)
Elva, Man. (grain handling/crop input)
Source: Saskatchewan Wheat Pool

Cargill has also agreed to sell to the Pool its 50 per cent ownership interest in the Cascadia terminal on Vancouver’s south shore that is jointly operated with Agricore. Cargill would, in turn, buy the Pool’s Vancouver port terminal on the north shore.

As part of the deal, Cargill would pay the Pool $70 million, plus the value of the crops in inventory at the elevators.

The Pool, meanwhile, would be required to back out of its partnership at the Vancouver port with James Richardson International. That’s the same privately held grain company that recently launched its own bid a friendly one for Agricore.

The deal between the Pool and Cargill depends on the Pool being able to complete its takeover of Agricore.

However,the Pool’s offer for Agricore has been rejected by company officials and Agricore’s principal shareholder, Archer Daniels Midland.

Regina-based Saskatchewan Wheat Pool is Canada’s second-largest grain company.Winnipeg-based Agricore, which has major holdings in Alberta and Manitoba, is the largest.

Agricore was formed when Agricore Co-operative merged with United Grain Growers in 2001.

AS 7800 investors nervously await news of their investment in the failed Fincorp Group ahead of a creditor’s meeting tomorrow, it has been revealed the group’s would-be white knight also has a chequered past. Leslie Freeman, the managing director of First Capital Group — the company that was in exclusive negotiations to buy Fincorp as recently as last Friday — oversaw the failure of a $29 million high-risk property group two years ago.

Mr Freeman previously controlled the failed Co-Develop Group, which was placed in receivership by the corporate regulator for operating illegally.

Mr Freeman’s current company, First Capital Group, invests in high-risk property development loans through its First Capital Securities arm and currently controls about $40 million of investors funds, offering high annual returns of up to 9.95 per cent.

The failed Co-Develop group raised money from the public to invest in high-risk property developments — offering annual returns of between 35 per cent and 100 per cent.

Receivers KordaMentha were appointed to Mr Freeman’s Co-Develop Group and its eight related companies in December 2004 following action by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

ASIC alleged Co-Develop Group operated an unregistered managed investment scheme, did not hold an Australian Financial Services licence, offered securities without a current disclosure document and engaged in conduct “that was misleading and deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive”.

Mr Freeman had been the executive director of Co-Develop and his wife Kylie Freeman was the group’s sole director.

ASIC said Mr and Ms Freeman had undertaken not to seek “any further money from investors for the (Co-Develop) schemes”.

But the watchdog said it had taken no further action to prevent Mr Freeman raising funds from investors, except through Co-Develop and its related entities.

First Capital Group, of which Mr Freeman is currently managing director, announced two weeks ago it had entered an agreement to buy the Fincorp Group for $5 million and had lent the struggling company $3 million.

Fincorp, which has raised about $200 million from investors, was placed in voluntary administration on Friday night after The Australian on Thursday sent a series of written questions concerning the group’s poor financial position to 11 past and current directors.

Mr Freeman said ASIC’s allegations of improper conduct concerning Co-Develop had not been proven because they were not tested before the court as he had consented for KordaMentha to take control of Co-Develop.

“They were allegations that were made that were never proven in court — we never got before a judge in the matter,” Mr Freeman said.

He said First Capital Securities was different to Fincorp because no related party was allowed to borrow from the group’s financing arm. “Of the $200 million Fincorp has raised from the public, about $170 million of that was used in related party transactions,” Mr Freeman said.

KordaMentha receiver Lachlan McIntosh said at the time Co-Develop was ordered to be wound up, it would have delivered investors “10c or 20c in the dollar”.

First Capital Group owns a 20 per stake in wealth seminar firm Empowernet International, which has exclusive rights to market “motivational speaker” Anthony Robbins in the Asia-Pacific region.