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April Fool’s Day is a bad day to announce a major strategy shift. Case in point: Dell announced today that the company will slash US$3 billion in costs over the next 3 years, according to PC World via Yahoo and Engadget. This includes eliminating 5600 jobs on top of an previously announced cut of 3200 positions.

Dell will also close a desktop computer manufacturing plant in its headquarters city of Austin, which accounts for 900 of the lost jobs according to the Austin American-Statesman. Desktop computer sales continue to flag while Dell shipped 37% more portables during the fiscal year.

Dell Financial Services may be sold or spun off. DFS provides consumer and business financing for computer hardware and software sold through Dell’s direct sales channels.

Dell is preparing ahead, as computer hardware manufacturers tend to lead the economy out of recessions.

I’m knee deep in paper grading right now, but here’s a quick post with some April Foolishness.

Patrick Altoft has a live blog of April Fools pages and pranks here.

Planning to take over the world? Read the Evil Genius Guide to Business. I’m talking to you, Hank Scorpio!

ThinkGeek and Amazon are selling a book on silly Internet RFCs. A Request for Comments is a document that describes proposed Internet standards and technologies, and there is a long tradition of joke RFCs.

Google continues its annual tradition of gags, as reported on Cnet. This year’s crop includes Gmail Custom Time, a feature that lets Gmail users send thir email messages into the past.

There are almost a dozen Google hoaxes this year, including Google Australia’s gDay, a search engine that travels 24 hours ahead in time.

Google also announced Virgle, a joint venture with Virgin to develop an open-source expedition to Mars. Google’s co-founders describe the project in this YouTube video.