Talk:Dell

So... all the truth about dell has been replaced with this crap from Dell public relations?

This article needs to be updated, Dell has purchased Alienware. http://today.reuters.com/business/newsArticle.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2006-03-23T003844Z_01_WEN3184_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-DELL-ALIENWARE-DC.XML --71.50.168.42 01:42, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Removed link to Dell Inspiron as it was in an incorrect statement and led to a stub.

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If Dell overtook Compaq, how did HP take over Compaq three years later to regain the lead as the largest manufacturer of PCs? Is this correct? Salami swami 19:43, Mar 4, 2004 (UTC)

From the HP History Page:

On May 3, 2002, HP completes its merger transaction with Compaq Computer Corp., the largest tech merger in history. The new HP is a leading global provider of products, technologies, solutions and services to consumers and business. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services, and imaging and printing.

From the WP article on Compaq:

In 2002, Compaq engaged in a bitterly contested merger with Hewlett-Packard. Numerous large HP shareholders, including Walter Hewlett, publicly opposed the deal. [Compaq] CEO Michael Capellas left the company soon after, leaving HP CEO Carly Fiorina in charge of the combined company. Many Compaq products were re-branded with the HP nameplate, while the Compaq brand remained on other product lines.

So it seems to officially have been a merger, but perhaps the decision to use the HP name more predominantly had to do with the Compaq CEO leaving soon after the merger. Compaq.com redirects to h18000.www1.hp.com and says at the bottom, "© 2004 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P."

--Wasabe3543 16:52, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Dell changed name in 2003

Dell changed their name in 2003 from Dell Computer to Dell [1]

"Excellent support"

I'm not speaking for or against Dell Support, but doesn't Dell has an excellent support system seem like a bit much editorializing rather than objectivism. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You're right. The entire article is pretty bad considering the enormity of this company. This probably doesn't belong on the article unless there's a respected 3rd-party report on this, but dell's support is actually the crappiest I've dealt with...ever. -Frazzydee|✍ 20:38, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Main Image

The main logo takes forever to load, might want to replace it with a smaller image.

"Diversity"

It's a pity that the coverage of diversity in this article didn't extend to acknowledging the existence of the six billion non-Americans in the world.Philip 04:44, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Kevin B. Rollins

I suspect the information at Kevin B. Rollins is not accurate; at the very least, since it can't decide if his name is Rollins or Rawlings, it's not reliable. Would someone look it over? -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:13, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Reasons for deleting most of Dell Dude in this article

I deleted: " This ad campaign ceased abruptly when authorities arrested Curtis on drug-possession charges." because that is not true. It contradicts Wikipedia's article about Benjamin Curtis which contains true information. Dell was starting to get rid of the Dell Dude ad campaign when he was arrested for weed. Proof: Ars Technica's 2002 article about Dell Dude commericals are going away. [2] He was caught buying weed in 2003. In addition, the Dell Dude getting arrested external link that appeared in this article doesn't add anything to the corporation. One of "Wikipedia is not," it is not a link site. --Anonymous Cow 18:09, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Reasons for my Edits

The first part of this article has been edited and revise. IMHO, it is much easier to read now.

First off, there was a lot on Michael Dell towards the end of the first section that seemed to be randomly placed there and not fit in with the article at all (why are we going from Dell computers to Michael Dell as a child?). Second off, there were a lot of tiny POV phrases there, such as "the revolutionary", and those are all deleted. Also, the article was condensed into paragraphs, instead of a collection of lines. --THollan 15:25, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

recent edit

I removed the branding section which includes software and operating systems, due to the fact that listing such items is more of advertising than being unique innovations of the computer industry. it also levels the playing field, as other companies such as Alienware, Gateway, Sony, Toshiba, etc do not have their brands listed.

Removed a POV external link

Cleaned up advertising section -- if we had to list every commercial made we'd have to do that for every other company, which is not nessecary for a general reference.

removed financial information because there are links to this data already.

Other things which appeared as POV have been removed. moved many items to history. --Fsdfs 06:47, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I restored the info about the "Dude, You're getting a Dell!" campaign... for many people, that campaign may be the single most notable thing about the company. Other than that, I agree with the changes you have made - Although the "Timeline" format, with a bunch of one-sentence paragraphs is a pretty grating style. Bunchofgrapes (talk) 15:04, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Competition Section

Alienware should be removed from the competition section. Hay Meadows 13:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Critism Section

Granted while some of this is Dell specific... it mostly applies to the entire industry at this point.

"For example, they have accused its customer service of helping businesses faster than individual customers." -- You can apply that to just about any computer company today, and consumer groups have accused HP and IBM of the same thing.

"Customer service critics target Dell Inc.'s outsourcing practices, specifically involving India, claiming they contribute to communication problems between the company and its customers." -- Again the whole industry is doing this

This section really needs to be rewritten. We really should reference some of these problems of broader industry concerns rather than Dell specific. Also it seems rather biased to have a section like this for Dell but not for HP, IBM, Gateway, or any other major computer company... --Pboyd04 04:55, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Also in the Software section

"On Dell's Windows machines, the manufacturer bundles a large quantity of software. Some have accused Dell of shipping spyware and claim that its technical support team have instructions not to support its de-installation." -- shouldn't this be moved to the critism section? --Pboyd04 05:24, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I know from experience the frustration of speaking to outsourced operators and having to send in my laptop for a second HD replacement because the first replacement simply didn't work - Philip Kinscherf

I think many of us do. But I've had the frustration of speaking to outsourced technicians for HP and IBM servers, desktops, laptops and printers. While Dell does have many critisms I think that we either need to add a section like this to all major computer vendors or remove it. There is a definate bias here. --Pboyd04 18:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

• Guys, I have used the Indian call centres for several firms (including Dell) and I find the people there to be very good. I sometimes have a little difficulty with their accent, but no worse than the Geordies at another call centre I deal with. Some (e.g. Veritas) are exceptional. They use a follow-the-sun system; I almost always get an indian tech but sometimes late in the day it transfers to the US. I would say that these are generic comments about Indian call centres (or rather, about call centres in general) and should not be gon into in such detail here. The reasons for using call centres are well understood, after all. Caveat: I think my firm spent $4m with Dell last year, so we get quite good service :-) - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 10:54, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• Ok guys, we have a potential for a revert war here. We need to decide some kind of policy either we include a crisism section for all major computer companies or we don't. We can't just pick on the biggest company and say that we have a NPOV. So it either needs to go or be added to other companies. (Oh and it would be nice if people would discuss this on here before making drastic changes to the page) --Pboyd04 17:23, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• • Just a thought is there a way we could do a section for deletion discussion similar to a AfD? --Pboyd04 17:25, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
    • I don't see what everyone is moaning about - Other computer company articles such as Apple Computer and Microsoft have criticism sections. If someone thinks its unfair 'picking' on Dell, then just write a criticism for articles such as HP as well instead of removing good information from the Dell article. I hardly think its POV having info on the Dell article that other articles don't - It's more a case of the need of expansion for articles that are missing the Criticism section. — Wackymacs 17:29, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
      • I guess the main problem is that there are 2 Dell specific critisms the rest are really critisms of the entire industry. Call centers in India, Consumer groups being upset that large corporate accounts (that usually have expensive service contracts) get better service, and hardware failures are not Dell specific and should either be removed or copied to every single computer companies page. The stuff on Apple's and Microsoft's pages actually are specific (for the most part) critisms. These aren't. --Pboyd04 17:37, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• Even the Dell-specific claims are not uniquely applicable to Dell, but actually I think that it is entirely fair to include component compatibility and "Intel-only". Other issues such as the Maxtor failures and GX270 power capacitor issues are specific but debatable as I've seen similar batch faults with IBM, HP and Apple before now. Call centre grouses are wholly generic. No reason these should not be included, in the form "Dell also receives generic PC industry complaints of blah, blah and blah". In general Dell are highly regarded, and their onsite service package (consumer and business) is the most user-friendly of any I've had to deal with in recent years. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 17:49, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• Here are some numbers I pulled off the Better Business Bureau's web site www.bbb.org

Number of Complaints in the last 36 months:

Apple Computer - 584

Hewlett Packard - 1833

Microsoft - 2809

Dell - 13,133

H2O 07:56, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

• If a criticism is valid it doesn't matter if it applies uniquely to Dell or the entire industry. If it is valid for the entire industry it should be in the articles of every company in the industry.--Onesloth 09:16, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

ihatedell.net

I restored the external link to ihatedell.net - I feel that this site is notable due to the fact that it has over 3000 registered users - if you can get past the juvenile front page you'll find it contains a significant amount of information about the company's culture and inner workings H2O 07:35, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Appearantly somebody has since removed it.

Possible misleading 64-bit comment

Hello,

Regarding this sentence: "This has cost Dell some sales of higher-end desktop systems, especially in the content-creation field, where benchmarks show AMD processors function better for most render intensive 64-bit applications." Is this misleading because Intel don't actually have desktop 64-bit CPUs? The only 64-bit Intel chips are made for servers.

Regards,

Joe

• Incorrect Intel has EM64T chips for consumers (mostly just enthusiasts at this point)... and in theses "higher-end desktop systems" that the contributer is talking about I assume he actually means "workstations" which would use Xeon (Intel) or Optheron (AMD) processors anyway...so kinda a moot point --Pboyd04 05:24, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Link removed

• Sample of Customer Reviews/Complaints

I don't know what the supposed authority of this site is, and I'm not sure what all the arguments in the URL are - tracking IDs? What? Combined with an edit stating that complaints have "soared" and satisfaction "plummeted" I am suspicious. Meanwhile my orders continue to arrive consistently within five working days. Just zis Guy you know? 22:30, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

"Personal tragic stories"

A section was removed becuase "this is not the place to share personal tragic stories of poor customer service".

• The Maxtor batch fault is a known issue and affects many hundreds of machines
• The D6xx series battery recall was global in scope
• The GX270 logic board batch fault appears to affect a very large number of machines, we have had about a one in three failuyre rate here and we have several hundred of them.

I don't especially care if these go in or not, but they are not "personal tragic stories" in the sense suggested. Other in the deleted content might have been. The point about batch faults with third-party components is, I believe, valid, if not restricted to Dell. Just zis Guy you know? 14:49, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Texas?

I'm just curious as to why this is part of the texas wikiproject? Besides having its headquarters in Texas, what umbrellas Dell under that WikiProject? → J@red  20:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes

Dell is considered a major part of texas' economy and community, providing work for thousands of hardworking Texans. 5/15/2006

Tech Support

In my numerous calls to Dell TS in the past year, I've noticed that the names of the people answering have changed (they've become American/Eurpeanized). The accents of the speakers, however, have not. I think it would be an interesting addition to the tech support section if I could get a reference on it. 06/07/06

Exploding battery

This article needs a link to the exploding battery in a Dell laptop, http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32550 Jedwards05 02:29, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Information on the exploding battery is already mentioned at the bottom of the criticism section along with Dell's response on their blog.Jvandyke 13:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

Sections of this article read like proganda for dell. Dell cuts costs by making an unreliable product and then refusing to honor warranties. Calls to tech support are met by 2 hour long waits, just to talk to someone followed by a month of waiting for them to fix it. after all that you get your computer back and they haven't touched it, coming up with some B.S. to avoid honorind their warranty.

I can't speak to all of your points, but Dell's new customer service leadership has acknowledged problems with new customer service "We were transferring, and still today, are transferring close to 45% of calls. That's out of a half a million calls from consumers a week. That's a lot. That's terrible."[3] and invested dollars and attention as detailed on Dell's blog: "We’re spending more than a $100 million — and a lot of blood, sweat and tears of talented people — to fix this."[4]. I'll try to post something like the former into the criticism section.Jvandyke 13:15, 18 July 2006 (UTC)