The latest front line in Dell's relentless battle to bring down the cost of the personal computer is a fiddly little label stuck to the casing.

With PC assembly time down to less than four minutes, the 30 seconds it can take to apply the ubiquitous security holograms and logos for Microsoft and Intel have become a significant manufacturing bottleneck. Talks are under way to eliminate what Dell production managers grudgingly describe as "other people's advertising".