Dell Inc. is an American multinational technology company founded in 1984 that develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Headquartered in Round Rock, Texas, Dell employs over 100,000 people worldwide and sells personal computers, servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals, and electronics built by other manufacturers. Dell pioneered the direct sales model and build-to-order approach to computer manufacturing and has since expanded into IT services through acquisitions. The company has faced challenges in recent years from a maturing PC market and increased competition.

1. Dell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the corporation known as Dell Inc.. For other uses, see Dell (disambiguation).
Dell Inc.
Dell Logo, 2010–present
Dell Headquarters in Round Rock, Texas
Type : Private
Industry : Computer hardware,Computer software, IT services, IT
consulting
Founded : February 1, 1984; 31 years ago
Headquarters : Round Rock, Texas, United States
Coordinates : 30.486593°N 97.666462°WCoordinates:
30.486593°N 97.666462°W
Area served : Worldwide
Key people : Michael Dell
(Founder, Chairman & CEO)



2. Products :  Personal computers
 Servers
 Peripherals
 Smartphones
 Televisions
Services : IT services
Revenue : US$ 56.94 billion (2013)
Operating
income US$ 3.01 billion (2013)
Net income : US$ 2.37 billion (2013)[3]
Total assets : US$ 47.54 billion (2013)[3]
Total equity : US$ 10.68 billion (2013)[3]
Owner :  Michael Dell
 Silver Lake Partners[1]
Number of :
employees
108,800 (2013)[3]
Subsidiaries : Alienware
 Dell Compellent
 Force10
 Perot Systems
 SonicWall
 Dell SecureWorks
Website : www.dell.com

3. Dell Inc.
is an American privately owned multinational computer technology company based in Round Rock,
Texas,United States, that develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and
services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest
technological corporations in the world, employing more than 103,300 people worldwide.[3]
Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software,
computer peripherals,HDTVs, cameras, printers, MP3 players, and electronics built by other
manufacturers. The company is well known for its innovations in supply chain
management and electronic commerce, particularly its direct-sales model and its "build-to-order" or
"configure to order" approach to manufacturing—delivering individual PCs configured to customer
specifications.[4][5]
Dell was a pure hardware vendor for much of its existence, but with the acquisition
in 2009 of Perot Systems, Dell entered the market for IT services. The company has since made
additional acquisitions in storage and networking systems, with the aim of expanding their portfolio
from offering computers only to delivering complete solutions for enterprise customers.[6][7]
Dell was listed at number 51 in the Fortune 500 list, until 2014.[8]
After going private in 2013, the
newly confidential nature of its financial information prevents the company from being ranked by
Fortune. In 2014 it was the third largest PC vendor in the world after Lenovo and HP.[9]
Dell is
currently the #1 shipper of PC monitors in the world.[10]
Dell is the sixth largest company in Texas by
total revenue, according to Fortune magazine.[11]
It is the second largest non-oil company in Texas –
behind AT&T – and the largest company in the Greater Austin area.[12]
It was a publicly traded
company (NASDAQ: DELL), as well as a component of the NASDAQ-100 and S&P 500, until it was
taken private in a leveraged buyout which closed on October 30, 2013.

4. History
Dell'sfirst logo from 1984 to 1989
Dell traces its origins to 1984, when Michael Dell created Dell Computer Corporation, which at the
time did business as PC's Limited,[13][14]
while a student of the University of Texas at Austin. The
dorm-room headquartered company sold IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock
components.[15]
Dell dropped out of school to focus full-time on his fledgling business, after getting
$1,000 in expansion-capital from his family. In 1985, the company produced the first computer of its
own design, the Turbo PC, which sold for $795.[16]
PC's Limited advertised its systems in national
computer magazines for sale directly to consumers and custom assembled each ordered unit
according to a selection of options. The company grossedmore than $73 million in its first year of
operation.
In 1986, Michael Dell brought in Lee Walker, a 51-year-old venture capitalist, as president and chief
operating officer, to serve as Michael's mentor and implement Michael's ideas for growing the
company. Walker was also instrumental in recruiting members to the board of directors when the
company went public in 1988. Walker retired in 1990 due to health, and Michael Dell hired Morton
Meyerson, former CEO and president of Electronic Data Systems to transform the company from a
fast-growing medium-sized firm into a billion-dollar enterprise.[17]
The company dropped the PC’s Limited name in 1987 to become Dell Computer Corporation and
began expanding globally. In June 1988, Dell's market capitalization grew by $30 million to
$80 million from its June 22 initial public offering of 3.5 million shares at $8.50 a share.[18]
In
1992, Fortune magazine included Dell Computer Corporation in its list of the world's 500 largest
companies, making Michael Dell the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company ever.[19]
In 1993, to complement its own direct sales channel, Dell planned to sell PCs at big-boxretail outlets
such as Wal-Mart, which would have brought in an additional $125 million in annual revenue.
However, Bain consultant Kevin Rollins persuaded Michael Dell to pull out of these deals, believing
they would be money losers in the long run.[20]
Indeed, margins at retail were thin at best and Dell left
the reseller channel in 1994.[21]
Rollins would soon join Dell full-time and eventually become the
company President and CEO.

5. Growth in 1990s and early 2000s
Originally, Dell did not emphasize the consumer market, due to the higher costs and unacceptably
low profit margins in selling to individuals and households; however, this changed when the
company’s Internet site took off in 1996 and 1997. While the industry’s average selling price to
individuals was going down, Dell’s was going up, as second- and third-time computer buyers who
wanted powerful computers with multiple features and did not need much technical support were
choosing Dell. Dell found an opportunity among PC-savvy individuals who liked the convenience of
buying direct, customizing their PC to their means, and having it delivered in days. In early 1997,
Dell created an internal sales and marketing group dedicated to serving the home market and
introduced a product line designed especially for individual users.[21]
From 1997 to 2004, Dell enjoyed steady growth and it gained market share from competitors even
during industry slumps. During the same period, rival PC vendors such
as Compaq, Gateway, IBM, Packard Bell, and AST Research would struggle and eventually leave
the market or get bought out.[22]
Dell surpassed Compaq to become the largest PC manufacturer in
1999. Operating costs made up only 10 percent of Dell's $35 billion in revenue in 2002, compared
with 21 percent of revenue at Hewlett-Packard, 25 percent at Gateway, and 46 percent at Cisco. In
2002, when Compaq merged with Hewlett Packard (the fourth-place PC maker), the newly combined
Hewlett Packard took the top spot but struggled and Dell soon regained its lead. Dell grew the
fastest in the early 2000s.
Dell attained and maintained the number 1 rating in PC reliability and customer service/technical
support, according to Consumer Reports, year after year, during the mid-to-late 90s through 2001
right before Windows XP was released.
In 1996, Dell began selling computers through its website.
In the mid-1990s, Dell expanded beyond desktop computers and laptops by selling servers, starting
with low-end servers. The major three providers of servers at the time were IBM, Hewlett Packard,
and Compaq, many of which were based on proprietary technology, such as IBM's Power4
microprocessors or various proprietary versions of the Unix operating system. Dell's new PowerEdge
servers did not require a major investment in proprietary technologies, as they ranMicrosoft
Windows NT on Intel chips, and could be built cheaper than its competitors.[24]
Consequently, Dell's
enterprise revenues, almost nonexistent in 1994, accounted for 13 percent of the company's total
intake by 1998. Three years later, Dell passed Compaq as the top provider of Intel-based servers,
with 31 percent of the market. Dell's first acquisition occurred in 1999 with the purchase of
ConvergeNet Technologies for $332 million, after Dell had failed to develop an enterprise storage
system in-house; however ConvergeNet's elegant but complex technology did not fit in with Dell's
commodity-producer business model, forcing Dell to write down the entire value of the acquisition.
In 2002, Dell expanded its product line to include televisions, handhelds, digital audio players,
and printers. Chairman and CEO Michael Dell, however, had repeatedly blocked President and
COO Kevin Rollins's attempt to lessen the company's heavy dependency on PCs, which Rollins
wanted to fix by acquiring EMC Corporation.[25]
In 2003, the company was rebranded as simply "Dell Inc." to recognize the company's expansion
beyond computers.[26]
In 2004, Michael Dell resigned as CEO while retaining the position of Chairman,[27]
handing the CEO
title to Kevin Rollins, who had been President and COO since 2001. Despite no longer holding the
CEO title, Dell essentially acted as a de facto co-CEO with Rollins.[25]
Under Rollins, Dell began to loosen its ties to Microsoft and Intel, the two companies responsible for
Dell's dominance in the PC business. During that time, Dell acquired Alienware,[28]
which introduced
several new items to Dell products, including AMD microprocessors. To prevent cross-market
products, Dell continues to run Alienware as a separate entity, but still a wholly owned subsidiary.

6. Disappointments
In 2005, while earnings and sales continued to rise, sales growth slowed considerably, and the
company stock lost 25% of its value that year.[29]
By June 2006, the stock traded around $25 USD
which was 40% down from July 2005—the high-water mark of the company in the post-dotcom
era.[30][31]
The slowing sales growth has been attributed to the maturing PC market, which constituted 66% of
Dell's sales, and analysts suggested that Dell needed to make inroads into non-PC businesses
segments such as storage, services and servers. Dell's price advantage was tied to its ultra-lean
manufacturing for desktop PCs,[32]
however this became less important as savings became harder to
find inside the company's supply chain, and as competitors such as Hewlett-Packard and Acer made
their PC manufacturing operations more efficient to match Dell, weakening Dell's traditional price
differentiation.[33]
Throughout the entire PC industry, declines in prices along with commensurate
increases in performance meant that Dell had fewer opportunities to upsell to their customers (a
lucrative strategy of encouraging buyers to upgrade the processor or memory). As a result, the
company was selling a greater proportion of inexpensive PCs than before, which eroded profit
margins.[22]
The laptop segment had become the fastest-growing of the PC market, but Dell produced
low-cost notebooks in China like other PC manufacturers which eliminated Dell's manufacturing cost
advantages, plus Dell's reliance on Internet sales meant that it missed out on growing notebook
sales in big box stores.[3][30]
CNET has suggested that Dell was getting trapped in the increasing
commoditization of high volume low margin computers, which prevented it from offering more
exciting devices that consumers demanded.[32]
Despite plans of expanding into other global regions and product segments, Dell was heavily
dependent on U.S. corporate PC market, as desktop PCs sold to both commercial and corporate
customers accounted for 32 percent of its revenue, 85 percent of its revenue comes from
businesses, and Sixty-four percent of its revenue comes from North and South America, according
to its 2006 third-quarter results. However, U.S. shipments of desktop PCs were shrinking.
Furthermore, the corporate PC market which purchases PCs in upgrade cycles had largely decided
to take a break from buying new systems. The last cycle started around 2002, three or so years after
companies started buying PCs ahead of the perceived Y2K problems, and corporate clients were not
expected to upgrade again until extensive testing of Microsoft's Windows Vista (expected in early
2007), putting the next upgrade cycle around 2008.[34][35]
Heavily depending on PCs, Dell had to slash
prices to boost sales volumes, while demanding deep cuts from suppliers.[25]
Dell had long stuck by its direct sales model. However consumers had become the main drivers of
PC sales in recent years,[35]
yet there had a decline in consumers purchasing PCs through the Web
or on the phone, as increasing numbers were visiting consumer electronics retail stores to try out the
devices first. Dell's rivals in the PC industry, HP, Gateway and Acer, had a long retail presence and
so were well poised to take advantage of the consumer shift.[36]
The lack of a retail presence stymied
Dell's attempts to offer consumer electronics such as flat-panel TVs and MP3 players. Dell
responded by experimenting with mall kiosks, plus quasi-retail stores in Texas and New York.
Dell had a reputation as a company that relied upon supply chain efficiencies to sell established
technologies at low prices, instead of being an innovator. By the mid-2000s many analysts were
looking to innovating companies as the next source of growth in the technology sector. Dell's low
spending on R&D relative to its revenue (compared to IBM, Hewlett Packard, and Apple Inc.)—which
worked well in the commoditized PC market—prevented it from making inroads into more lucrative
segments, such as MP3 players and later mobile devices.[29]
Increasing spending on R&D would
have cut into the operating margins that the company emphasized.[4]
Dell had done well with a
horizontal organization that focused on PCs when the computing industry moved to horizontal mix-
and-match layers in the 1980s, however by the mid-2000 the industry shifted to vertically integrated
stacks to deliver complete IT solutions and Dell lagged far behind competitors like Hewlett Packard
and Oracle. [33]

7. Dell's reputation for poor customer service, since 2002, which was exacerbated as it moved call
centres offshore and as its growth outstripped its technical support infrastructure, came under
increasing scrutiny on the Web. The original Dell model was known for high customer satisfaction
when PCs sold for thousands but by the 2000s, the company could not justify that level of service
when computers in the same lineup sold for hundreds.[38]
Rollins responded by shifting Dick Hunter
from head of manufacturing to head of customer service. Hunter, who noted that Dell's DNA of cost-
cutting "got in the way," aimed to reduce call transfer times and have call center representatives
resolve inquiries in one call. By 2006, Dell had spent $100 million in just a few months to improve on
this, and rolled outDellConnect to answer customer inquiries more quickly. In July 2006, the
company started its Direct2Dell blog, and then in February 2007, Michael Dell launched
IdeaStorm.com, asking customers for advice including selling Linux computers and reducing the
promotional "bloatware" on PCs. These initiatives did manage to cut the negative blog posts from
49% to 22%, as well as reduce the "Dell Hell" prominent on Internet search engines.
There was also criticism that Dell used faulty components for its PCs, particularly the 11.8 million
OptiPlex desktop computers sold to businesses and governments from May 2003 to July 2005, that
suffered from bad capacitors made by a company called Nichicon.[40]
A battery recall in August 2006,
as a result of a Dell laptop catching fire caused much negative attention for the company though
later, Sony was found responsible for the faulty batteries.[22]
2006 marked the first year that Dell's growth was slower than the PC industry as a whole. By the
fourth quarter of 2006, Dell lost its title of the largest PC manufacturer to rival Hewlett
Packard whose Personal Systems Group was invigorated thanks to a restructuring initiated by their
CEO Mark Hurd.[29][41] [42]
After four out of five quarterly earnings reports were below expectations, Rollins resigned as
President and CEO on January 31, 2007 and founder Michael Dell assumed the role of CEO again.

8. Dell 2.0 and downsizing
Dell announced a change campaign called "Dell 2.0," reducing the number of employees and
diversifying the company's products.[36][44]
While chairman of the board after relinquishing his CEO
position, Michael Dell still had significant input in the company during Rollins' years as CEO.
However, with the return of Michael Dell as CEO, the company saw immediate changes in
operations, the exodus of many senior vice-presidents and new personnel brought in from outside
the company.[34]
Michael Dell announced a number of initiatives and plans (part of the "Dell 2.0"
initiative) to improve the company's financial performance. These include elimination of 2006
bonuses for employees with some discretionary awards, reduction in the number of managers
reporting directly to Michael Dell from 20 to 12, and reduction of "bureaucracy." Jim Schneider
retired as CFO and was replaced by Donald Carty, as the company came under an SEC probe for
its accounting practices.[45]
On April 23, 2008, Dell announced the closure of one of its biggest Canadian call-centers in Kanata,
Ontario, terminating approximately 1100 employees, with 500 of those redundancies effective on the
spot, and with the official closure of the center scheduled for the summer. The call-center had
opened in 2006 after the city ofOttawa won a bid to host it. Less than a year later, Dell planned to
double its workforce to nearly 3,000 workers add a new building. However these plans were
reversed, due to a high Canadian dollar that made the Ottawa staff relatively expensive, and also as
part of Dell's turnaround, which involved moving these call-center jobs offshore to cut costs.[46]
The
company had also announced the shutdown of its Edmonton, Alberta office, losing 900 jobs. In total,
Dell announced the ending of about 8,800 jobs in 2007–2008 — 10% of its workforce.[47]
By the late 2000s, Dell's "configure to order" approach of manufacturing—delivering individual PCs
configured to customer specifications from its US facilities was no longer as efficient or competitive
with high-volume Asian contract manufacturers as PCs became powerful low-cost
commodities.[5][48]
Dell closed plants that produced desktop computers for the North American market,
including the Mort Topfer Manufacturing Center in Austin, Texas (original location)[49][50]
and Lebanon,
Tennessee (opened in 1999) in 2008 and early 2009, respectively. The desktop production plant
in Winston-Salem, North Carolina received $280 million USD in incentives from the state and
opened in 2005, but ceased operations in November 2010. Dell's contract with the state required
them to repay the incentives for failing to meet the conditions, and they sold the North Carolina plant
to Herbalife.[51][52][53]
Most of the work that used to take place in Dell's U.S. plants was transferred to
contract manufacturers in Asia and Mexico, or some of Dell's own factories overseas. The Miami,
Florida facility of its Alienware subsidiary remains in operation, while Dell continues to produce its
servers (its most profitable products) in Austin, Texas. [48]
On January 8, 2009 Dell announced the
closure of its manufacturing plant in Limerick, Ireland with the loss of 1,900 jobs and the transfer of
production to its plant in Łodź in Poland.[54]
The release of Apple's iPad tablet computer had a negative impact on Dell and other major PC
vendors, as consumers switched away from desktop and laptop PCs. Dell's own mobility division has
not managed success with developing smartphones or tablets, whether running Windows or Google
Android.[55][56]
The Dell Streakwas a failure commercially and critically due to its outdated OS,
numerous bugs, and low resolution screen. InfoWorld suggested that Dell and other OEMs saw
tablets as a short-term, low-investment opportunity running Google Android, an approach that
neglected user interface and failed to gain long term market traction with consumers.[57][58]
Dell has
responded by pushing higher-end PCs, such as the XPS line of notebooks, which do not compete
with the Apple iPad and Kindle Firetablets.[59]
The growing popularity of smartphones and tablet
computers instead of PCs drove Dell's consumer segment to an operating loss in Q3 2012. In
December 2012, Dell suffered its first decline in holiday sales in five years, despite the introduction
of Windows 8.[60]
In the shrinking PC industry, Dell continued to lose market share, as it dropped below Lenovo in
2011 to fall to number three in the world. Dell and fellow American contemporary

9. 2013 buyout
After several weeks of rumors, which started around January 11, 2013, Dell announced on February
5, 2013 that it had struck a $24.4 billion leveraged buyout deal, that would have delisted its shares
from the NASDAQ and Hong Kong Stock Exchange and taken it private. Michael Dell and Silver
Lake Partners, aided by a $2 billion loan from Microsoft, will buy the public shares at $13.65 a
piece.[74]
The $24.4 billion buyout is the largest leveraged buyout backed by private equity since
the 2007 financial crisis.[76]
It is also the largest technology buyout ever, surpassing the 2006 buyout
of Freescale Semiconductor for $17.5 billion.[76]
The founder of Dell, Michael Dell, said of the buyout "I believe this transaction will open an exciting
new chapter for Dell, our customers and team members".[77]
Dell rival Lenovo reacted to the buyout,
saying "the financial actions of some of our traditional competitors will not substantially change our
outlook".[77]
Meanwhile, HP stated that Dell's traditional product innovation might suffer as a result of
the buyout.[78]
The buyout price represents a small premium over the current stock price, and much lower than the
stock's all-time high of $65 USD per share reached during the dotcom bubble in 2000, as well as its
July 2005 price of $40 USD which was the high-water mark of the post-dotcom era. The price of
$13.65 per share represented a 25% premium to the stock price, but far below the 52-week high of
$18.36, and more than 76% off its all-time high.[79]
Several major institutional shareholders have
voiced opposition, including Southeastern Asset Management and Mason Hawkins.[80]
Michael Dell
owns the largest single share of the company's stock and was part of negotiations to go
private,[81]
however he is offering only $750 million of his own money for a deal that will involve
almost $16 billion in new debt.[82]
T. Rowe Price, which has the third largest holding, also objected to
the low price of the proposal.[83]
Southeastern Asset Management, the largest shareholder of Dell
stock with about 8.5%, is opposed to the deal at the per share price of $13.50 to $13.75 as they
value the company at $23.72 a share.[84]
Southeastern also complained that the overseas funds
aren't offered to sweeten the buyout offer.[85]
Typical leveraged buyouts have been viewed as tools of vulture capitalists. Ordinarily, the buyer
seeks to break up the firm and layoff workers, or bring greater efficiency and new management to a
troubled firm. The Dell leveraged buyout is unusual because the driving force behind the deal was
not a vulture capitalist, but rather, Michael Dell, who was already the Chairman and CEO, founder,
and largest shareholder of the firm. Unlike most leveraged buyouts that aim to wrest management
control away from incumbents, the Dell deal intends to keep the same leadership team in place. The
main aim of Dell's leveraged buyout is to rejigger the company’s financial structure. By going private,
Dell would be able to radically restructure its legacy PC business and build up its enterprise
solutions and cloud computing, without worrying about the impact on its quarterly results and its
stock price.[70]
Gartner has warned that this may include Dell leaving the PC market entirely.In March
2013, the Blackstone Group and Carl Icahn expressed interest in purchasing Dell.[89]
In April 2013,
Blackstone withdrew their offer, citing deteriorating business.[90][91]
Other private equity firms such as
KKR & Co. and TPG Capital declined to submit alternative bids for Dell, citing the uncertain market
for personal computers and competitive pressures, so the "wide-open bidding war" never
materialized.[7]
Analysts said that the biggest challenge facing Silver Lake would be to find an “exit
strategy” to profit from its investment, which would be when the company would hold an IPO to go
public again, and one warned “But even if you can get a $25bn enterprise value for Dell, it will take
years to get out.”[79]
In May 2013, Dell joined his board in voting for his offer.[92]
The following August he reached a deal
with the special committee on the board for a raised price of $13.75 plus a special dividend of 13
cents per share, as well as a change to the voting rules.[93]
The offer was accepted on September
12[94]
and closed on October 30, 2013, ending Dell's 25-year run as a publicly traded company.

10. Acquisitions
For more details on this topic, see List of Dell ownership activities.
 In 2006, Dell acquired Alienware, a manufacturer of high-end PCs
popular with gamers.[96][97][98]
 The company acquired EqualLogic on January 28, 2008, to gain a
foothold in the iSCSI storage market.[99][100]
Because Dell already had
an efficient manufacturing process, integrating EqualLogic's
products into the company drove manufacturing prices down.
In 2009, Dell acquiredPerot Systems, a technology services and outsourcing company, mainly active in the
health-sector, founded by former presidential hopeful H. Ross Perot
 In 2009, Dell acquired Perot Systems, based in Plano, Texas, in a
reported $3.9 billion deal, and amalgamated into Dell
Services.[102][103]
The acquired business provided Dell with
applications development, systems integration, and strategic
consulting services through its operations in the U.S. and 10 other
countries. In addition, the acquisition of Perot brought a variety of
business process outsourcing services, including claims processing
and call center operations.[104]
 On February 10, 2010, the company acquired KACE Networks a
leader in Systems Management Appliances. The terms of the deal
were not disclosed.[105]
 On August 16, 2010, Dell announced plans to acquire the data
storage company 3PAR.On September 2, Hewlett-Packard offered
$33 a share for 3PAR, which Dell declined to match.[108][109]
 On November 2, 2010, Dell acquired Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
integration leader Boomi. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.[110]
 In February 2011, Dell completed the acquisition
of Compellent extending the storage solution portfolio.[111]
 In August 2011, Dell completed the acquisition of Force10 networks
changing the name in Dell Force10.[112]
By acquiring this company
Dell now has the fullIntellectual property for their networking
portfolio, which was lacking on the Dell PowerConnect range as
these products are powered by Broadcom or MarcellIM.
 On February 24, 2012, Dell acquired backup and disaster recovery
software solution provider AppAssure Software of Reston,
VA.[113]
AppAssure delivered 194 percent revenue growth in 2011
and over 3500% growth in the prior three years. AppAssure
supports physical servers and VMware, Hyper-V and XenServer.
The deal represents the first acquisition since Dell formed its
software division under former CA CEO John Swainson. Dell added
that it will keep AppAssure’s 230 employees and invest in the
company.

11. Dell facilities
Dell's headquarters is located in Round Rock, Texas As of 2013 the company employs about 14,000
people in central Texas and is the region's largest private employee which has 2,100,000 square
feet (200,000 m2
) of space.[128]
As of 1999 almost half of the general fund of the City of Round Rock
originates from sales taxes generated from the Dell headquarters.[129]
Dell previously had its headquarters in the Arboretum complex in northern Austin, Texas.[130][131]
In
1989 Dell occupied 127,000 square feet (11,800 m2
) in the Arboretum complex.[132]
In 1990, Dell had
1,200 employees in its headquarters.[130]
In 1993, Dell submitted a document to Round Rock officials,
titled "Dell Computer Corporate Headquarters, Round Rock, Texas, May 1993 Schematic Design."
Despite the filing, during that year the company said that it was not going to move its
headquarters.[133]
In 1994, Dell announced that it was moving most of its employees out of the
Arboretum, but that it was going to continue to occupy the top floor of the Arboretum and that the
company's official headquarters address would continue to be the Arboretum. The top floor
continued to hold Dell's board room, demonstration center, and visitor meeting room. Less than one
month prior to August 29, 1994, Dell moved 1,100 customer support and telephone sales employees
to Round Rock.[134]
Dell's lease in the Arboretum had been scheduled to expire in 1994.[135]
The company sponsors Dell Diamond, the home stadium of the Round, the AAA minor league baseball affiliate
of the Texas Rangers major league baseball team
By 1996, Dell was moving its headquarters to Round Rock.[136]
As of January 1996 3,500 people still
worked at the current Dell headquarters. One building of the Round Rock headquarters, Round Rock
3, had space for 6,400 employees and was scheduled to be completed in November 1996.[137]
In
1998 Dell announced that it was going to add two buildings to its Round Rock complex, adding
1,600,000 square feet (150,000 m2
) of office space to the complex.[138]
In 2000, Dell announced that it would lease 80,000 square feet (7,400 m2
) of space in the Las
Camas office complex in unincorporated Travis County, Texas, between Austin and West Lake Hills,
to house the company's executive offices and corporate headquarters. 100 senior executives were
scheduled to work in the building by the end of 2000.[139]
In January 2001, the company leased the
space in Las Camas 2, located along Loop 360. Las Camas 2 housed Dell's executives, the
investment operations, and some corporate functions. Dell also had an option for 138,000 square
feet (12,800 m2
) of space in Las Camas 3.[140]
After a slowdown in business required reducing
employees and production capacity, Dell decided to sublease its offices in two buildings in the Las
Camas office complex.[141]
In 2002 Dell announced that it planned to sublease its space to another
tenant; the company planned to move its headquarters back to Round Rock once a tenant was
secured.[140]
By 2003, Dell moved its headquarters back to Round Rock. It leased all of Las Camas I
and II, with a total of 312,000 square feet (29,000 m2
), for about a seven-year period after 2003. By
that year roughly 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2
) of that space was absorbed by new subtenants.[142]
In 2008, Dell switched the power sources of the Round Rock headquarters to more environmentally
friendly ones, with 60% of the total power coming from TXU Energy wind farms and 40% coming
from the Austin Community Landfill gas-to-energy plant operated by Waste Management, Inc.[128]
Dell facilities in the United States are located in Austin, Texas; Plano, Texas; Nashua, New
Hampshire; Nashville, Tennessee; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Peoria, Illinois; Hillsboro,
Oregon (Portland area); Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Eden Prairie, Minnesota (Dell
Compellent); Bowling Green, Kentucky; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Miami, Florida. Facilities located
abroad include Penang, Malaysia; Xiamen, China; Cracknel, UK; Manila, Philippines[143]
Chennai,
India;[144]
India; Noida; Hortolandia and Porto Alegre, Brazil; Bratislava, Slovakia; Łódź,
Poland,[145]
Panama City in Panama, Dublin and Limerick, Ireland and Casablanca, Morocco
The US and India are the only countries that have all Dell's business functions and provide support
globally: research and development, manufacturing, finance, analysis, and customer care.[146]

12. Manufacturing[edit]
From its early beginnings, Dell operated as a pioneer in the "configure to order" approach to
manufacturing—delivering individual PCs configured to customer specifications. In contrast, most
PC manufacturers in those times delivered large orders to intermediaries on a quarterly basis.[147]
To minimize the delay between purchase and delivery, Dell has a general policy of manufacturing its
products close to its customers. This also allows for implementing a just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing
approach, which minimizes inventory costs. Low inventory is another signature of the Dell business
model—a critical consideration in an industry where components depreciate very rapidly.[148]
Dell's manufacturing process covers assembly, software installation, functional testing (including
"burn-in"), and quality control. Throughout most of the company's history, Dell manufactured desktop
machines in-house and contracted out manufacturing of base notebooks for configuration in-
house.[149]
However, the company's approach has changed, as cited in the 2006 Annual Report,
which states, "We are continuing to expand our use of original design manufacturing partnerships
and manufacturing outsourcing relationships." The Wall Street Journal reported in September 2008
that "Dell has approached contract computer manufacturers with offers to sell" their plants.[150]
By the
late 2000s, Dell's "configure to order" approach of manufacturing—delivering individual PCs
configured to customer specifications from its US facilities was no longer as efficient or competitive
with high-volume Asian contract manufacturers as PCs became powerful low-cost commodities.[48]
Assembly of desktop computers for the North American market formerly took place at Dell plants
in Austin, Texas (original location) and Lebanon, Tennessee(opened in 1999), which have been
closed in 2008 and early 2009, respectively. The plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina received
$280 million USD in incentives from the state and opened in 2005, but ceased operations in
November 2010, and Dell's contract with the state requires them to repay the incentives for failing to
meet the conditions.[52][53]
Most of the work that used to take place in Dell's U.S. plants was
transferred to contract manufacturers in Asia and Mexico, or some of Dell's own factories overseas.
The Miami, Florida facility of its Alienware subsidiary remains in operation, while Dell continues to
produce its servers (its most profitable products) in Austin, Texas. [48]
Dell assembled computers for the EMEA market at the Limerick facility in the Republic of Ireland,
and once employed about 4,500 people in that country. Dell began manufacturing in Limerick in
1991 and went on to become Ireland's largest exporter of goods and its second-largest company
and foreign investor. On January 8, 2009, Dell announced that it would move all Dell manufacturing
in Limerick to Dell's new plant in the Polish city of Łódź by January 2010.[151]
European Unionofficials
said they would investigate a €52.7million aid package the Polish government used to attract Dell
away from Ireland.[152]
European Manufacturing Facility 1 (EMF1, opened in 1990) and EMF3 form
part of the Raheen Industrial Estate near Limerick. EMF2 (previously a Wang facility, later occupied
by Flextronics, situated in Castletroy) closed in 2002,[citation needed]
and Dell Inc. has consolidated
production into EMF3 (EMF1 now[when?]
contains only offices).[153]
Subsidies from the Polish
government did keep Dell for a long time.[154]
After ending assembly in the Limerick plant
the Cherrywood Technology Campus in Dublin was the largest Dell office in the republic with over
1200 people in sales (mainly UK & Ireland), support (enterprise support for EMEA) and research and
development for cloud computing, but no more manufacturing except [155]
Dell's Alienware subsidiary,
which manufactures PCs in an Athlone, Ireland plant. Whether this facility will remain in Ireland is not
certain.[156]
Construction of EMF4 in Łódź, Poland has started: Dell started production there in
autumn 2007.[157]
Dell opened plants in Penang, Malaysia in 1995, and in Xiamen, China in 1999. These facilities
serve the Asian market and assemble 95% of Dell notebooks. Dell Inc. has invested[when?]
an
estimated $60 million in a new manufacturing unit in Chennai, India, to support the sales of its
products in the Indian subcontinent. Indian-made products bear the "Made in India" mark. In 2007
the Chennai facility had the target of producing 400,000 desktop PCs, and plans envisaged it
starting to produce notebook PCs and other products in the second half of 2007.[citation needed]

13. Dell moved desktop and PowerEdge server manufacturing for the South American market from
the Eldorado do Sul plant opened in 1999, to a new plant inHortolandia, Brazil in 2007.[158]
Products[edit]
Scope and brands[edit]
Dell's tagline 'Yours is Here', as seen at their Mall of Asia branch inPasay City, Philippines
The corporation markets specific brand names to different market segments.
Its Business/Corporate class represent brands where the company advertising emphasizes long life-
cycles, reliability, and serviceability. Such brands include:
 OptiPlex (office desktop computer systems)
 Dimension (home desktop computer systems)
 Vostro (office/small business desktop and notebook systems)
 n Series (desktop and notebook computers shipped
with Linux or FreeDOS installed)
 Latitude (business-focused notebooks)
 Precision (workstation systems and high-performance
notebooks),[159]
 PowerEdge (business servers)
 PowerVault (direct-attach and network-attached storage)
 Force10 (network switches)
 PowerConnect (network switches)
 Dell Compellent (storage area networks)
 EqualLogic (enterprise class iSCSI SANs)
 Dell EMR (electronic medical records)
Dell's Home Office/Consumer class emphasizes value, performance, and expandability. These
brands include:
 Inspiron (budget desktop and notebook computers)
 XPS (high-end desktop and notebook computers)
 Alienware (high-performance gaming systems)
 Venue (Tablets Android / Windows)
Dell's Peripherals class includes USB keydrives, LCD televisions, and printers; Dell
monitors includes LCD TVs, plasma TVs and projectors for HDTV and monitors. Dell UltraSharp is
further a high-end brand of monitors.
Dell service and support brands include the Dell Solution Station (extended domestic support
services, previously "Dell on Call"), Dell Support Center (extended support services abroad), Dell
Business Support (a commercial service-contract that provides an industry-certified technician with a
lower call-volume than in normal queues), Dell Everdream Desktop Management ("Software as a
Service" remote-desktop management, originally a SaaS company founded by Elon Musk's
cousin,Lyndon Rive, which Dell bought in 2007[160]
), and Your Tech Team (a support-queue available
to home users who purchased their systems either through Dell's website or through Dell phone-
centers).
Discontinued products and brands include Axim (PDA; discontinued April 9,
2007),[161]
Dimension (home and small office desktop computers; discontinued July 2007),

14. Technical support
Dell routes technical support queries on products for the professional market according to
component-type and to the level of support purchased:[162]
1. Basic support provides business-hours telephone support and
next business-day on-site support/ Return-to-Base, or Collect
and Return Services (based on contracts purchased at point of
sale)
2. Dell ProSupport provides 24x7x365 telephone and online
support, a selection of 4 or 6-hour onsite support after
telephone-based troubleshooting, and a Mission Critical option
with two-hour onsite support, for customers who choose the
highest level of support for their most critical hardware
assets.[163]
In addition, the company provides protection services, advisory services, multivendor hardware
support, "how-to" support for software applications, collaborative support with many third-party
vendors, and online parts and labor dispatching for customers who diagnose and troubleshoot their
hardware. Dell also provides Dell ProSupport customers access to a crisis-center to handle major
outages, or problems caused by natural disasters.[164]
Dell also provide on-line support by using the
computer's service-tag that provides full list of the hardware elements installed originally, purchase
date and provides the latest upgrades for the original hardware drivers.
Dell's Consumer division has 24x7 phone based and online troubleshooting in the United States and
Canada. In 2008, Dell redesigned services-and-support for businesses with "Dell ProSupport",
offering customers more options to adapt services to fit their needs.
Commercial aspects[edit]
Organization[edit]
The board consists of nine directors. Michael Dell, the founder of the company, serves as chairman
of the board and chief executive officer. Other board members include Don Carty, William
Gray, Judy Lewent, Klaus Luft, Alex Mandl, Michael A. Miles, and Sam Nunn. Shareholders elect the
nine board members at meetings, and those board members who do not get a majority of votes must
submit a resignation to the board, which will subsequently choose whether or not to accept the
resignation. The board of directors usually sets up five committees having oversight over specific
matters. These committees include the Audit Committee, which handles accounting issues, including
auditing and reporting; the Compensation Committee, which approves compensation for the CEO
and other employees of the company; the Finance Committee, which handles financial matters such
as proposed mergers and acquisitions; the Governance and Nominating Committee, which handles
various corporate matters (including nomination of the board); and the Antitrust Compliance
Committee, which attempts to prevent company practices from violating antitrust laws.[citation needed]
Day-to-day operations of the company are run by the Global Executive Management Committee,
which sets strategic direction. Dell has regional senior vice-presidents for countries other than the
United States, including David Marmonti for EMEA and Stephen J. Felice for Asia/Japan. As of
2007, other officers included Martin Garvin (senior vice president for worldwide procurement)
and Susan Sheskey (vice president and Chief Information Officer).[citation needed]

15. Marketing[edit]
Dell advertisements have appeared in several types of media including television, the Internet,
magazines, catalogs and newspapers. Some of Dell Inc's marketing strategies include lowering
prices at all times of the year, free bonus products (such as Dell printers), and free shipping to
encourage more sales and stave off competitors. In 2006, Dell cut its prices in an effort to maintain
its 19.2% market share. However, this also cut profit-margins by more than half, from 8.7 to 4.3
percent. To maintain its low prices, Dell continues to accept most purchases of its products via the
Internet and through the telephone network, and to move its customer-care division to India and El
Salvador.[165]
A popular United States television and print ad campaign in the early 2000s featured the actor Ben
Curtis playing the part of "Steven", a lightly mischievous blond-haired youth who came to the
assistance of bereft computer purchasers. Each television advertisement usually ended with
Steven's catch-phrase: "Dude, you're gettin' a Dell!"[citation needed]
A subsequent advertising campaign featured interns at Dell headquarters (with Curtis' character
appearing in a small cameo at the end of one of the first commercials in this particular campaign).
A Dell advertising campaign for the XPS line of gaming computers featured in print in the September
2006 issue of Wired. It used as a tagline the common term in Internet and gamer slang: "FTW",
meaning "For The Win". However, Dell Inc. soon[when?]
dropped the campaign.
In 2007, Dell switched advertising agencies in the US from BBDO to Working Mother Media. In July
2007, Dell released new advertising created by Working Mother to support the Inspiron and XPS
lines. The ads featured music from the Flaming Lips and Devo who re-formed especially to record
the song in the ad "Work it Out". Also in 2007, Dell began using the slogan "Yours is here" to say
that it customizes computers to fit customers' requirements.[166]
Beginning in the year 2011, Dell began hosting a Conference in Austin, TX at the Austin Convention
Center titled "Dell World". The event featured new technology and services provided by Dell and
Dell's partners. In 2011, the event was held October 12–14.[167]
In 2012, the event was held
December 11–13.[168]
In 2013, the event was held December 11–13.[169]
Dell partner program[edit]
In late 2007, Dell Inc. announced that it planned to expand its program to value-added
resellers (VARs), giving it the official name of "Dell Partner Direct" and a new Website.[170]
Dell India has started Online Ecommerce website[171]
with its Dell Partner www.compuindia.com GNG
Electronics Pvt Ltd[172]
termed as Dell Express Ship Affiliate(DESA). The main objective was to
reduce the delivery time. Customers who visit Dell India official site are given option to buy online
which then will be redirected to Dell affiliate website compuindia.com.[146]
Criticisms of marketing of laptop security[edit]
In 2008, Dell received press coverage over its claim of having the world's most secure laptops,
specifically, its Latitude D630 and Latitude D830.[173]
At Lenovo's request, the (U.S.) National
Advertising Division (NAD) evaluated the claim, and reported that Dell did not have enough evidence
to support it.[174]
Retail[edit]
Dell first opened their retail stores in India.[146]
United States[edit]
In the early 1990s, Dell sold its products through Best Buy, Costco and Sam's Club stores in the
United States. Dell stopped this practice in 1994, citing low profit-margins on the business,
exclusively distributing through a direct-sales model for the next decade. In 2003, Dell briefly sold

16. Kiosks[edit]
Starting in 2002, Dell opened kiosk locations in shopping malls across the United States to provide
personal service to customers who preferred this method of shopping to Internet or telephone
orders.[citation needed]
Despite the added expense, prices at the kiosks match or beat prices available
through other retail channels. Starting in 2005, Dell expanded kiosk locations to include shopping
malls across Australia, Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong.
On January 30, 2008, Dell shut down all 140 kiosks in the U.S. due to expansion into retail stores.[175]
By June 3, 2010, Dell had also shut down all of its mall kiosks in Australia.[176]
NorthPark Service Center[edit]
In 2006, Dell Inc. opened one full store, 3,000-square-foot (280 m2
) in area, at NorthPark
Center in Dallas, Texas. It operates the retail outlet seven days a week to display about 36 models,
including PCs and televisions. As at the kiosks, customers can only see demonstration-computers
and place orders through agents. Dell then delivers purchased items just as if the customer had
placed the order by phone or over the Internet.
In addition to showcasing products, the stores also support on-site warranties and non-warranty
service ("Dell Solution Station"). Services offered include repairing computer video-cards and
removing spyware from hard drives.
On February 14, 2008, Dell closed the Service Center in its Dallas NorthPark store and laid off all
the technical staff there.[citation needed]
Retail Stores[edit]
As of the end of February 2008, Dell products shipped to one of the largest office-supply retailers in
Canada, Staples Business Depot. In April 2008, Future Shopand Best Buy began carrying a subset
of Dell products, such as certain desktops, laptops, printers, and monitors.
Since some shoppers in certain markets show reluctance to purchase technological products
through the phone or the Internet, Dell has looked into opening retail operations in some countries in
Central Europe and Russia. In April 2007, Dell opened a retail store in Budapest. In October of the
same year, Dell opened a retail store in Moscow.
In the UK, HMV's flagship Trocadero store has sold Dell XPS PCs since December 2007. From
January 2008 the UK stores of DSGi have sold Dell products (in particular, through Currys and PC
World stores). As of 2008, the large supermarket-chain Tesco has sold Dell laptops and desktops in
outlets throughout the UK.
In May 2008, Dell reached an agreement with office supply chain, Officeworks (part of Coles Group),
to stock a few modified models in the Inspiron desktop and notebook range. These models have
slightly different model numbers, but almost replicate the ones available from the Dell Store. Dell
continued its retail push in the Australian market with its partnership with Harris Technology (another
part of Coles Group) in November of the same year. In addition, Dell expanded its retail distributions
in Australia through an agreement with discount electrical retailer, The Good Guys, known for
"Slashing Prices". Dell agreed to distribute a variety of makes of both desktops and notebooks,
including Studio and XPS systems in late 2008. Dell and Dick Smith Electronics (owned
by Woolworths Limited) reached an agreement to expand within Dick Smith's 400 stores throughout
Australia and New Zealand in May 2009 (1 year since Officeworks — owned by Coles Group —
reached a deal). The retailer has agreed to distribute a variety of Inspiron and Studio notebooks,
with minimal Studio desktops from the Dell range. As of 2009, Dell continues to run and operate its
various kiosks in 18 shopping centres throughout Australia. On March 31, 2010 Dell announced to
Australian Kiosk employees that they were shutting down the Australian/New Zealand Dell kiosk
program.

17. In Germany, Dell is selling selected smartphones and notebooks via Media Markt and Saturn, as
well as some shopping websites.[177]
Competition[edit]
Dell's major competitors include Hewlett-
Packard (HP), Acer, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Gateway, Sony, Asus, Lenovo, IBM, MSI, Samsung and Apple
. Dell and its subsidiary,Alienware, compete in the enthusiast market against AVADirect, Falcon
Northwest, VoodooPC (a subsidiary of HP), and other manufacturers. In the second quarter of 2006,
Dell had between 18% and 19% share of the worldwide personal computer market, compared to HP
with roughly 15%.
In late 2006, Dell lost its lead in the PC-business to Hewlett-Packard.
Both Gartner and IDC estimated that in the third quarter of 2006, HP shipped more units[178]
worldwide
than Dell did. Dell's 3.6% growth paled in comparison to HP's 15% growth during the same period.
The problem got worse in the fourth quarter, when Gartner estimated[179]
that Dell PC shipments
declined 8.9% (versus HP's 23.9% growth). As a result, at the end of 2006 Dell's overall PC market-
share stood at 13.9% (versus HP's 17.4%).
IDC reported that Dell lost more server market share than any of the top four competitors in that
arena. IDC's Q4 2006 estimates show Dell's share of the server market at 8.1%, down from 9.5% in
the previous year. This represents an 8.8% loss year-over-year, primarily to
competitors EMC and IBM.
Partnership with EMC[edit]
The Dell/EMC brand applies solely to products that result from Dell's partnership with EMC
Corporation.[citation needed]
In some cases, Dell and EMC jointly design such products. Other cases
involve EMC products that Dell supports—generally midrange storage systems, such as fibre
channel and iSCSI storage area networks. The relationship also promotes and sells OEM versions
of backup, recovery, replication and archiving software.[180]
On December 9, 2008, Dell and EMC announced the multi-year extension, through 2013, of their
strategic partnership that began in 2001. In addition, Dell plans to expand its product line-up by
adding the EMC Celerra NX4 storage system to the portfolio of Dell/EMC family of networked
storage systems, as well as partnering on a new line of de-duplication products as part of its
TierDisk family of data-storage devices.[181]
On October 17, 2011, Dell announced officially discontinued reselling all EMC storage products,
ending a 10 year long partnership 2 years early.[182]
Environmental record
Dell committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its global activities by 40% by 2015, with
2008 fiscal year as the baseline year.[183]
It is listed inGreenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics that
scores leading electronics manufacturers according to their policies on sustainability, climate and
energy and how green their products are. In November 2011, Dell ranked 2nd out of 15 listed
electronics makers (increasing its score to 5.1 from 4.9, which it gained in the previous ranking from
October 2010).[184]
Dell was the first company to publicly state a timeline for the elimination of toxic polyvinyl chloride
(PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs), which it planned to phase out by the end of 2009. It
revised this commitment and now aims to remove these toxics by the end of 2011 but only in its
computing products.[185]
In March 2010, Greenpeace activists protested at Dell offices in Bangalore,
Amsterdam and Copenhagen calling for Dell’s founder and CEO Michael Dell to ‘drop the toxics’ and
claiming that Dell’s aspiration to be ‘the greenest technology company on the planet’[186]
was

18. Green initiatives[edit]
Dell became the first company in the information technology industry to establish a product-
recycling goal (in 2004) and completed the implementation of its global consumer recycling-program
in 2006.[190]
On February 6, 2007, the National Recycling Coalition awarded Dell its "Recycling
Works" award for efforts to promote producer responsibility.[191]
On July 19, 2007, Dell announced
that it had exceeded targets in working to achieve a multi-year goal of recovering 275 million pounds
of computer equipment by 2009. The company reported the recovery of 78 million pounds (nearly
40,000 tons) of IT equipment from customers in 2006, a 93-percent increase over 2005; and 12.4%
of the equipment Dell sold seven years earlier.[192]
On June 5, 2007, Dell set a goal of becoming the greenest technology company on Earth for the
long term.[citation needed]
The company launched a zero-carboninitiative that includes:
1. reducing Dell's carbon intensity by 15 percent by 2012
2. requiring primary suppliers to report carbon emissions data
during quarterly business reviews
3. partnering with customers to build the "greenest PC on the
planet"
4. expanding the company's carbon-offsetting program, "Plant a
Tree for Me"
The company introduced the term "The Re-Generation" during a round table in London
commemorating 2007 World Environment Day. "The Re-Generation" refers to people of all ages
throughout the world who want to make a difference in improving the world's environment. Dell also
talked about plans to take the lead in setting an environmental standard for the technology industry
and maintaining that leadership in the future.[citation needed]
Dell reports its environmental performance in an annual Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Report that follows the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) protocol. Dell's 2008 CSR report ranked as
"Application Level B" as "checked by GRI".[193]
The company aims to reduce its external environmental impact through energy-efficient evolution of
products, and also reduce its direct operational impact through energy-efficiency programs. Internal
energy-efficiency programs reportedly save the company more than $3 million annually in energy-
cost savings. The largest component of the company's internal energy-efficiency savings comes
through PC power management: the company expects to save $1.8 million in energy costs through
using specialized energy-management software on a network of 50,000 PCs.

19. Criticism
See also: Lawsuits involving Dell Inc.
In the 1990s, Dell switched from using primarily ATX motherboards and PSU to using boards and
power supplies with mechanically identical but differently wired connectors. This meant customers
wishing to upgrade their hardware would have to replace parts with scarce Dell-compatible parts
instead of commonly available parts. While motherboard power connections reverted to the industry
standard in 2003, Dell continues to remain secretive about their motherboard pin-outs for peripherals
(such as MMC readers and power on/off switches and LED's).[194][195]
In 2005, complaints about Dell more than doubled to 1,533, after earnings grew52% that year.[196]
In 2006, Dell acknowledged that it had problems with customer service. Issues included call
transfers[197]
of more than 45% of calls and long wait times. Dell's blogdetailed the response: "We're
spending more than a $100 million — and a lot of blood, sweat and tears of talented people — to fix
this."[198]
Later in the year, the company increased its spending on customer service to
$150 million.[199]
Despite significant investment in this space, Dell continues to face public scrutiny
with even the company's own website littered with complaints regarding the issue escalation
process.[200]
On August 17, 2007, Dell Inc. announced that after an internal investigation into its accounting
practices it would restate and reduce earnings from 2003 through to the first quarter of 2007 by a
total amount of between $50 million and $150 million, or 2 cents to 7 cents per share.[201]
The
investigation, begun in November 2006, resulted from concerns raised by the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission over some documents and information that Dell Inc. had submitted.[202]
It was
alleged that Dell had not disclosed large exclusivity payments received from Intel for agreeing not to
buy processors from rival manufacturer AMD. In 2010 Dell finally paid $100 million to settle the
SEC's charges of fraud. Michael Dell and other executives also paid penalties and suffered other
sanctions, without admitting or denying the charges.[203]
In July 2009, Dell apologized after drawing the ire of the Taiwanese Consumer Protection
Commission for twice refusing to honour a flood of orders against unusually low prices offered on its
Taiwanese website. In the first instance, Dell offered a 19" LCD panel for $15. In the second
instance, Dell offered its Latitude E4300 notebook at NT$18,558 (US$580), 70% lower than usual
price of NT$60,900 (US$1900). Concerning the E4300, rather than honour the discount taking a
significant loss, the firm withdrew orders and offered a voucher of up to NT$20,000 (US$625) a
customer in compensation. The consumer rights authorities in Taiwan fined Dell NT$1 million
(US$31250) for customer rights infringements. Many consumers sued the firm for the unfair
compensation. A court in southern Taiwan ordered the firm to deliver 18 laptops and 76 flat-panel
monitors to 31 consumers for NT$490,000 (US$15,120), less than a third of the normal price.[204]
The
court said the event could hardly be regarded as mistakes, as the prestigious firm said the company
mispriced its products twice in Taiwanese website within 3 weeks.After Michael Dell made a $24.4
billion buyout bid in August 2013, activist shareholder Carl Icahn sued the company and its board in
an attempt to derail the bid and promote his own own forthcoming offer.
Senior Software Engineer (23)
SALARY TABLE of EMPLOYEE IN DELL COMPANY

20. Software Engineer (17)
Salary Rs 287,754 -
Rs 1,216,409
Bonus Rs 5,787 -
Rs 108,242
Total Pay Rs 296,884 -
Rs 1,315,749
.Software Developer (11)
Bonus Rs 9,967 -
Rs 242,395
ProfitDisbursement Rs 3,624 -
Rs 116,689
Total Pay Rs 598,260 -
Rs 1,551,328

21. Technical Support Engineer (9)
Salary Rs 178,538 - Rs 786,459
Bonus Rs 3,106 - Rs 65,355
Total Pay Rs 176,753 - Rs 841,996
Salary Rs 223,008 -
Rs 1,212,167
Bonus Rs 3,966 -
Rs 94,392
Total Pay Rs 223,008 -
Rs 2,564,447