Dell has confirmed that a $90 million production facility in Limerick, Ireland will become operational by the end of the year, and will create around 1700 jobs. That will come as some consolation to the Irish government, which this week learned its attempts to prevent job losses at Apple's Cork plant had failed. Apple announced that 450 jobs were to go following its decision to outsource the plant's iMac production to South Korean company LG Electronics in a deal that appears to be paving the way for a major production deal with Apple (see Apple tight-lipped on LG's iMac production deal). LG will be assembling European iMacs in its own facility in Wales. In an interview on Irish TV, Dell chairman and CEO Michael Dell said he did not foresee his company following Apple's example. "Our Irish operations are tailored to our needs," he said. "I don't expect to change that. In fact, I see further expansion of our operations here." Market research agencies IDC and Dataquest recently published figures naming Dell the second and third biggest global PC vendor, respectively, and noted its industry-leading level of growth -- almost 65 per cent, according to Dataquest. ®