PC magnate Michael Dell visited San Francisco Monday to tout a new line of disk drives and to offer reassurances that the Texan who put his brand on personal computing has come back to transform the $60 billion company that bears his name.

Dell, 42, is a computer industry legend of the same caliber, only a decade behind, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, all of them college dropouts who started companies when most of their peers were picking majors.

In Dell’s case, legend holds that the then-18-year-old started his company out of a University of Texas dormitory room, parlaying $1,000 and a great idea - direct-selling computers made to order - into what is today a company selling roughly $15 billion worth of computing equipment every three months.

But over the past year or so, the company that Dell built has lost market share leadership to Palo Alto’s Hewlett-Packard Co. Last year, Dell had to recall 4 million laptops, sharing the pain with battery-maker Sony, which took the blame.

By the start of 2007, as the company’s sagging stock price undermined confidence on Wall Street, Michael Dell returned to the company as chief executive officer, saying goodbye to former CEO Kevin Rollins, who had held the top executive spot since only 2004 but who had worked as second-in-command to the founder for a decade.

In May, the Texas company said it would lay off about 10 percent of its roughly 88,000 workers worldwide. Three months later, Dell informed the Securities and Exchange Commission in an official report that from 2003 to 2006 company officials had made small “adjustments” to financial statements “sometimes at the request of or with the knowledge of senior executives” that would require the company to restate four years’ worth of earnings.

It was against this tarnished backdrop that Dell held a customer town hall meeting at San Francisco’s Four Seasons Hotel to talk about a new line of data-storage products for small and midsize firms.

After the public briefing, Dell holed up with reporters for about 30 minutes to answer the question that everyone from Wall Street analysts to the computer buyers was wondering: Has the fabled founder got the right stuff to put what is a roughly a $60 billion company back on track?

“I am confident that I can lead this company competently now and in the future,” said Dell, who has been telling all comers that he is in this comeback for the long haul.

Dell has been preaching reassurance since at least Feb. 2 when, days after reassuming the chief executive’s post, he sent out a “Dell 2.0″ memo to the company’s workforce, calling the 2006 results “disappointing and unacceptable” and promising that although “we have a couple of tough quarters ahead … we will fix this business and take it to new heights.”

This new thinking on Dell’s part will include finding its PCs - heretofore sold almost entirely by mail order - in select big-box stores, with Wal-Mart leading the list.

In his San Francisco appearance, Dell said he expects the company to line up similar deals with volume retailers in “the top 10 countries in the world.”

He alternated between acknowledging the company’s woes and reminding critics that, as troubled companies go, its vicissitudes are on the mild side, given that it has remained consistently profitable through the past several years, even if its growth and performance have underwhelmed Wall Street.

The San Francisco event was focused mainly on Dell’s business clientele, but the company, whose high-performance PCs are eagerly sought by game players, will also be rebuilding its brand with consumers, according to Mark Jarvis, the company’s newly appointed chief marketing officer.

Jarvis, who joins Dell after 14 years of peddling databases for Larry Ellison’s Oracle Corp., said one part of his job will be to simplify the cacophony of messages coming from Dell, which had 869 advertising and marketing firms.

But Dell 2.0 wouldn’t be just about efficiency said Jarvis, who, chatting with reporters after the event, suggested that his goal is to make the Texas company as sexy as Apple, the company that has arguably become the arbiter of cool in consumer electronics.

“Apple has become the conformist company,” said Jarvis, arguing that it’s now become so established as to demand an opposite. “I want Dell to be the different company,” Jarvis said, and when asked for the how, replied: “Watch this space.”

PC market share

Worldwide, 2nd quarter

18%

Hewlett-Packard

14.8%

Dell

7.9%

Lenovo

7.1%

Acer

3.9%

Toshiba

2.8%

Apple

45.5%

Other

Source: Gartner Inc.

E-mail Tom Abate at tabate@sfchronicle.com.

FOUR men yesterday appeared in court charged in connection with the murder of a Hell’s Angel biker on the M40.

Simon Turner, 40, Dane Garside, 41, and 43-year-old Sean Creighton are all charged with the murder of motorcyclist Gerry Tobin on the motorway in Warwickshire on August 12.

Dean Taylor, 45, of Coventry, appeared alongside them at Nuneaton Magistrates’ Court, charged with a firearms offence.

The four spoke only to confirm their names at the brief hearing. The case was adjourned until September 3 when it will be heard at a crown court.

Meanwhile, a Sunderland man with learning difficulties who was savagely beaten by a gang of teenagers on a housing estate died in hospital yesterday morning.

Detectives said a murder inquiry is now under way following the death of 23-year-old Brent Martin in Sunderland Royal Hospital. Northumbria Police said two teenagers were being questioned about the incident which happened on Thursday night.

Police said Martin, a local man, was subjected to a “savage and prolonged attack” by a gang of five youths.

And Liverpool has been hit by another gun crime only two days after the murder of 11-year-old Rhys Jones.

Two doormen were shot outside the Alma de Santiago nightclub in Penny Lane late on Friday night. A Merseyside Police spokesman said both men were being treated in hospital and their condition was not yet known.

Roads around the nightclub, in the Mossley Hill area of the city, were cordoned off as officers carried out inquiries.

In addition, three men have appeared in court charged with violent disorder following a street shooting in Hertfordshire which left two people seriously injured.

The incident happened in Letchworth Garden City on Thursday morning. Two weapons were recovered from the scene in Boscombe Court - a small-calibre firearm and a hammer.

PC magnate Michael Dell visited San Francisco Monday to tout a new line of disk drives and to offer reassurances that the Texan who put his brand on personal computing has come back to transform the $60 billion company that bears his name.

Dell, 42, is a computer industry legend of the same caliber, only a decade behind, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, all of them college dropouts who started companies when most of their peers were picking majors.

In Dell’s case, legend holds that the then-18-year-old started his company out of a University of Texas dormitory room, parlaying $1,000 and a great idea - direct-selling computers made to order - into what is today a company selling roughly $15 billion worth of computing equipment every three months.

But over the past year or so, the company that Dell built has lost market share leadership to Palo Alto’s Hewlett-Packard Co. Last year, Dell had to recall 4 million laptops, sharing the pain with battery-maker Sony, which took the blame.

By the start of 2007, as the company’s sagging stock price undermined confidence on Wall Street, Michael Dell returned to the company as chief executive officer, saying goodbye to former CEO Kevin Rollins, who had held the top executive spot since only 2004 but who had worked as second-in-command to the founder for a decade.

In May, the Texas company said it would lay off about 10 percent of its roughly 88,000 workers worldwide. Three months later, Dell informed the Securities and Exchange Commission in an official report that from 2003 to 2006 company officials had made small “adjustments” to financial statements “sometimes at the request of or with the knowledge of senior executives” that would require the company to restate four years’ worth of earnings.

It was against this tarnished backdrop that Dell held a customer town hall meeting at San Francisco’s Four Seasons Hotel to talk about a new line of data-storage products for small and midsize firms.

After the public briefing, Dell holed up with reporters for about 30 minutes to answer the question that everyone from Wall Street analysts to the computer buyers was wondering: Has the fabled founder got the right stuff to put what is a roughly a $60 billion company back on track?

“I am confident that I can lead this company competently now and in the future,” said Dell, who has been telling all comers that he is in this comeback for the long haul.

Dell has been preaching reassurance since at least Feb. 2 when, days after reassuming the chief executive’s post, he sent out a “Dell 2.0″ memo to the company’s workforce, calling the 2006 results “disappointing and unacceptable” and promising that although “we have a couple of tough quarters ahead … we will fix this business and take it to new heights.”

This new thinking on Dell’s part will include finding its PCs - heretofore sold almost entirely by mail order - in select big-box stores, with Wal-Mart leading the list.

In his San Francisco appearance, Dell said he expects the company to line up similar deals with volume retailers in “the top 10 countries in the world.”

He alternated between acknowledging the company’s woes and reminding critics that, as troubled companies go, its vicissitudes are on the mild side, given that it has remained consistently profitable through the past several years, even if its growth and performance have underwhelmed Wall Street.

The San Francisco event was focused mainly on Dell’s business clientele, but the company, whose high-performance PCs are eagerly sought by game players, will also be rebuilding its brand with consumers, according to Mark Jarvis, the company’s newly appointed chief marketing officer.

Jarvis, who joins Dell after 14 years of peddling databases for Larry Ellison’s Oracle Corp., said one part of his job will be to simplify the cacophony of messages coming from Dell, which had 869 advertising and marketing firms.

But Dell 2.0 wouldn’t be just about efficiency said Jarvis, who, chatting with reporters after the event, suggested that his goal is to make the Texas company as sexy as Apple, the company that has arguably become the arbiter of cool in consumer electronics.

“Apple has become the conformist company,” said Jarvis, arguing that it’s now become so established as to demand an opposite. “I want Dell to be the different company,” Jarvis said, and when asked for the how, replied: “Watch this space.”

PC market share

Worldwide, 2nd quarter

18%

Hewlett-Packard

14.8%

Dell

7.9%

Lenovo

7.1%

Acer

3.9%

Toshiba

2.8%

Apple

45.5%

Other

Source: Gartner Inc.

E-mail Tom Abate at tabate@sfchronicle.com.