early-stage-development

Dell is an American multinational computer technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Named after its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest technology corporations in the world, employing more than 165,000 people in the U.S. and around the world. It is one of the biggest PC product companies in the world. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals, HDTVs, cameras, printers 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. Dell was a pure hardware vendor for much of its existence, but with the acquisition in 2009 of Perot Systems, Dell entered t

Dell traces its origins to 1984, when Michael Dell created Dell Computer Corporation, which at the time did business as PC's Limited , while a student of the University of Texas at Austin. The dorm-room headquartered company sold IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock components. 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. 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 grossed more 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 Dell's mentor and implement Dell's ideas for growing the company. Walker was als

List of companies acquired by Dell Inc. Company acquired Date of acquisition Company notes References Alienware 2006 Manufacturer of high-end PCs popular with gamers EqualLogic January 28, 2008 Acquired to gain a foothold in the iSCSI storage market. Because Dell already had an efficient manufacturing process, integrating EqualLogic's products into the company drove manufacturing prices down Perot Systems 2009 Perot Systems was a technology services and outsourcing company, mainly active in the health-sector, founded by former presidential hopeful H. Ross Perot. 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. KACE Networks February 10, 2010 KACE Networks was a leader i

Dell's headquarters is located in Round Rock, Texas. As of 2013update the company employed about 14,000 people in central Texas and was the region's largest private employer, which has 2,100,000 square feet (200,000 m2) of space. As of 1999 almost half of the general fund of the city of Round Rock originated from sales taxes generated from the Dell headquarters. Dell previously had its headquarters in the Arboretum complex in northern Austin, Texas. In 1989 Dell occupied 127,000 square feet (11,800 m2) in the Arboretum complex. In 1990, Dell had 1,200 employees in its headquarters. 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. 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

Scope and brands edit 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 "Mobile Workstation" notebooks), 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:

Self-signed root certificate edit In November 2015 it emerged that several Dell computers had shipped with an identical pre-installed root certificate known as "eDellRoot". This raised such security risks as attackers impersonating HTTPS-protected websites such as Google and Bank of America and malware being signed with the certificate to bypass Microsoft software filtering. Dell apologised and offered a removal tool. Dell Foundation Services edit Also in November 2015, a researcher discovered that customers with diagnostic program Dell Foundation Services could be digitally tracked using the unique service tag number assigned to them by the program. This was possible even if a customer enabled private browsing and deleted their browser cookies. Ars Technica recommended that Dell customers uninstall the program until the issue was addressed.

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, Judy Lewent, Klaus Luft, Alex Mandl, 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 the nomination of the

Dell committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from its global activities by 40% by 2015, with the 2008 fiscal year as the baseline year. It is listed in Greenpeace'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). 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 toxics by the end of 2011 but only in its computing products. 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

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 remains secretive about their motherboard pin-outs for peripherals (such as MMC readers and power on/off switches and LEDs). In 2005, complaints about Dell more than doubled to 1,533, after earnings grew 52% that year. In 2006, Dell acknowledged that it had problems with customer service. Issues included call transfers of more than 45% of calls and long wait times. Dell's blog detailed the response: "We're spending more than a $100 million—and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears of talented people—to fix this." Later in the year, the company increased its spending on cu