Dell is an American multinational computer technology company that develops, sells,

repairs, and supports computers and related products and services, and is owned by
its parent company of Dell Technologies. Founded in 1984 by 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.[4][5]

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.[6][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[buzzword] for enterprise customers.[7][8]

Dell was listed at number 51 in the Fortune 500 list until 2014.[9] Its rank is
34th on the Fortune 500 currently.[10] It is the world's 3rd largest personal
computer vendor by unit sales as of January 2021, following Lenovo and HP Inc..[11]
Dell is the largest shipper of PC monitors worldwide.[12] Dell is the sixth-largest
company in Texas by total revenue, according to Fortune magazine.[13] It is the
second-largest non-oil company in Texas (behind AT&T) and the largest company in
the Greater Austin area.[14] After going private in 2013, the newly confidential
nature of its financial information prevents the company from being ranked by
Fortune. 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.

In 2015, Dell acquired the enterprise technology firm EMC Corporation; following
the completion of the purchase, Dell and EMC became divisions of Dell Technologies.
Dell EMC as a part of Dell Technologies focus on data storage, information
security, virtualization, analytics, cloud computing and other related products and
services.[15]

Contents
1 History
1.1 Growth in the 1990s and early 2000s
1.2 Disappointments
1.3 Dell 2.0 and downsizing
1.4 2013 buyout
2 Senior Leadership
2.1 List of chairmen
2.2 List of chief executives
3 Acquisitions
3.1 Acquisition of EMC
4 Dell facilities
4.1 Manufacturing
5 Products
5.1 Scope and brands
6 Security
6.1 Self-signed root certificate
6.2 Dell Foundation Services
7 Commercial aspects
7.1 Organization
7.2 Marketing
7.2.1 Dell partner program
7.2.2 Global analytics
7.2.3 Criticisms of marketing of laptop security
7.3 Retail
7.3.1 United States
7.3.1.1 Kiosks
7.3.2 Retail stores
7.4 Competition
7.5 Partnership with EMC
8 Environmental record
8.1 Green initiatives
9 Criticism
10 See also
11 References
12 Further reading
13 External links
History
Main article: History of Dell
Dell's first logo from 1987 to 1989
Dell's first logo from 1987 to 1989
Dell's former logo, used from 1989 to 2010
Dell's former logo, used from 1989 to 2010
Dell's logo, used before the acquisition of EMC, used from 2010 to 2016
Dell's logo used before the acquisition of EMC, used from 2010 to 2016, continued
to be used on some products until early 2018.
Dell traces its origins to 1984, when Michael Dell created Dell Computer
Corporation, which at the time did business as PC's Limited,[16][17] while a
student of the University of Texas at Austin. The dorm-room headquartered company
sold IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock components.[18] 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.[19] 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 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.[20]

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 from $30 million to $80 million from its June 22 initial public
offering of 3.5 million shares at $8.50 a share.[21] 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.[22]

In 1993, to complement its own direct sales channel Dell planned to sell PCs at
big-box retail outlets such as Wal-Mart, which would have brought in an additional
$125 million in annual revenue. Bain consultant Kevin Rollins persuaded Michael
Dell to pull out of these deals, believing they would be money losers in the long
run.[23] Margins at retail were thin at best and Dell left the reseller channel in
1994.[24] Rollins would soon join Dell full-time and eventually become the company
President and CEO.

Growth in the 1990s and early 2000s

Originally, Dell did not emphasize the consumer market, due to the higher costs and
low profit margins in selling to individuals and households; 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.[24]

From 1997 to 2004, Dell steadily grew 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 struggled and eventually left
the market or were bought out.[25] 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.[26] 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.[6]

Dell attained and maintained the top rating in PC reliability and customer
service/technical support, according to Consumer Reports, during the mid-to-late
1990s 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 ran Microsoft Windows NT on Intel
chips, and could be built cheaper than its competitors.[27] 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;
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.[26]

In 2002, Dell expanded its product line to include televisions, handhelds, digital
audio players, and printers. Chairman and CEO Michael Dell 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.[28]

In 2003, the company was rebranded as simply "Dell Inc.", to recognize the
company's expansion beyond computers.[29]

In 2004, Michael Dell resigned as CEO while retaining the position of Chairman,[30]
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.[28]

Under Rollins, Dell acquired Alienware, a manufacturer of high-end PCs, targeted

mainly towards the gaming market.[31]