[Info-vax] Info-vax Digest, Vol 78, Issue 28

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Sunday, 17 November 2019 23:36:35 UTC, Jojimbo  wrote:
> I worked for several years with my boss who had been Michael Dell’s classmate. UT Austin. The way he explained it was that Dell had started his business by basically doing nothing except opening the Intel catalog. Motherboard, Processor, Memory, Disk, Mouse.  Check OK.  
> 
> Then he got orders from his dorm room and shipped them out. The beauty of this plan was that there couldn’t be any fingerpointing amongst the vendors. They were all Intel.

It's been apparent for years that Dell's main role was the
production and distribution arm of Intel HQ's x86 systems 
prototyping team.

It became even more obvious when the story of the support that
Intel were giving Dell to *not* sell AMD-based kit started
to emerge (more in accounting circles rather than tech circles). 

June 2010:
https://www.cnet.com/news/dell-to-restate-earnings-due-to-accounting-fraud/

July 2010:
https://www.economist.com/newsbook/2010/07/23/taking-away-dells-cookie-jar
"For years, Dell's seemingly magical power to squeeze 
efficiencies out of its supply chain and drive down costs 
made it a darling of the financial markets. Now it appears 
that the magic was at least partly the result of a huge 
financial illusion. On July 22nd Dell agreed to pay a 
$100m penalty to settle allegations by America's 
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that, in the 
SEC's words, the company had “manipulated its accounting 
over an extended period to project financial results that 
the company wished it had achieved.” The company neither 
admitted nor denied guilt as part of the settlement—a 
common phraseology in such deals. 

The penalty seems rather light given the gravity of 
the SEC's accusations. According to the commission, Dell 
would have missed analysts' earnings expectations in 
every quarter between 2002 and 2006 were it not for 
accounting shenanigans. This involved a deal with Intel, 
a big microchip-maker, under which Dell agreed to use 
Intel's central processing unit chips exclusively in its
 computers in return for a series of undisclosed payments, 
locking out Advanced Micro Devices, a big rival."
(continues)