I got an e-mail message in my Hotmail account a couple of days ago from Microsoft's communications department, announcing that Dell and Microsoft have partnered up to participate in the (PRODUCT) RED campaign.

Annoying punctuation aside, this is a great campaign that rock star Bono helped co-found with Bobby Shriver (brother of Maria and nephew of JFK), about a year and a half ago.

It led major retailers, such as the Gap, to sell t-shirts, hoodies, and various other apparel emblazoned with logos such as Inspi(red) or Mothe(red). Gap donated 50 percent of each sale to The Global Fund, which works to treat AIDS patients living in Africa.

Apple, meanwhile, offered red iPod shuffles and nanos to the cause, with a percentage of sales going to The Global Fund, though I couldn't find out just how much of a percentage.

Dell and Microsoft are now lending products to the cause, with the companies donating between $50 and $80 from every purchase of a handful of notebook and desktop PCs equipped with Windows Vista Ultimate.

For instance if you buy one of Dell's very fancy and very "red" XPS One units, which retail for $1,599, $80 goes to The Global Fund. Meanwhile, for every purchase of the XPS M1330 or XPS M1530 notebook PCs ($1,149 respectively), $50 is given to The Global Fund. For every purchase of a 948 All-in-One printer ($149), $5 will be donated.

In fact, you can see Bono, Bill Gates, and Michael Dell give their spiel on CNBC.

According to the (PRODUCT) RED Web site:

"Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED, available on all Dell (PRODUCT) RED PCs, is designed to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. You get Window Vista Ultimate, enhanced with (PRODUCT) RED content like wallpapers and gadgets, on a stunning collection of PCs, and you are empowered to make extraordinary things happen, and at no extra cost to you, provide nearly 4 months ($50 from notebooks) to over 6 months ($80 from the desktop) worth of life-preserving antiretroviral medication for a person in Africa living with AIDS."

That's pretty cool.

I always wonder what the numbers yield on these kinds of charitable causes.

It's one thing for Dell and Windows to do but now people actually seek out the product on Dell's Web site.

While the PCs are easy to locate on the Product Red site, it's a bit more difficult to find the line on the actual Dell site.

I went to the Dell Web site to look up these Red PCs and found it a bit of a goose chase to track the products down.

I finally had to just stick the term "red" in the search bar to get the product to come up.

And therefore, I'm not incredibly hopeful that this newly added product is really going to do wonders for the Product Red initiative, but at least it's something.

I wish I could be less cynical about these kinds of things as I am very certain that every little bit counts. But at the end of the day, it truly is the consumer who, albeit indirectly, really winds up giving more in the end, proportionately speaking.

$1,500 is a significant chunk of money from the average person's pocketbook, and $50 to $80 from giant corporations like Dell and Microsoft is chump change.

Again, I understand both these corporations probably give to a lot of different charities and that needs to be applauded.

But who also needs to be applauded, are those Joes and Janes that not only buy these products, but go out of their way to buy these products. Those are the real heroes in my book.