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Dell Going Private In $24.4 Billion Agreement
Nerval's Lobster writes "Dell is going private again, as the result of a $24.4 billion deal involving private-equity investors and Microsoft. The deal will close before the end of the second quarter of Dell's fiscal 2014, according to Reuters. Dell founder and namesake Michael Dell, who owns roughly 14 percent of the company's common shares, will continue to lead the newly privatized venture as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. He will contribute his existing shares to the new company, on top of a 'substantial' additional cash investment. As with other hardware manufacturers in the space, Dell faces the specter of a softening PC market. And while Dell has made significant efforts to penetrate other markets—including the launch of a private cloud architecture based on the open-source OpenStack—that weakness has affected its bottom line: for its fiscal 2013 third quarter, the company reported an 11 percent decrease in revenue from the previous year; while it enjoyed an increase in revenue from its servers and services businesses, revenue from its Consumer division dipped 23 percent. Its Large Enterprise, Small and Medium Business, and Public revenue also declined." Another take at the New York Times.
Give the money back to the shareholders!
No Linux support at all...
Time to support system 76 with my dollars.
Good maybe, they can get back to providing a good service/product for reasonable prices and a modest profit rather than the 100% as much money as possible even at the expense of future profits model that the current corporate culture in the world seems to mandate as the norm.
Any deal with Microsoft in the title is destined for failure. Just ask Nokia how that's worked out for them so far.
Someone had to ask.
You may be right on the cost of Sarbanes Oxley compliance but I think your wrong about the cash.
IIRC, over half of the cash is being held overseas from un-repatriated foreign profits. As long as Dells’ overseas subsidiaries hold onto the cash they don’t have to pay corporate tax on it. The second it comes back they do.
This could be the best thing for Dell.
I'm no economist, but the limited exposure I've had to public companies is that nowadays, it's all about ONLY the next quarterly report.
The way the stock market is pushing things, you can't actually make good long term decisions for your company because the only thing that matters is short term stuff.
By buying back the stock, they're possibly giving themselves the opportunity to take control back and run the company in the best interests of long-term strategy/goals.
Good Luck Dell
The Digital Sorceress
Substitute Michael Dell for Sam Zell, and Dell Company for Tribune Company. Here lies the future...
Never trust guys with names that end in 'ell'
More importantly, they are getting Dell tech support.
My condolences.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Yes.
It won't close for another year, so you could treat that 27 cents as intrest. Also, there is a chance the deal could fall though - and which point the price may well drop.
So it is currently selling for 13.38 a share. Does this mean we could buy it now and make 27 cents a share when this deal goes through?
Yes. There is one tiny little problem. That's about a 2% total rate of return and they're not completing the sale for about a year and a half. And you get to pay commission to buy the stock out of your fabulous profit opportunity. Also you'll get to pay capgains tax on your "winnings" when it goes up 27 cents. There's probably an easier way to get a laughable one percent or so APR return. Assuming all goes well of course, which it probably will. Although most deals have some kind of clause where if something completely nuts happens the deal is off. So (trade?) war with China and the stock drops to $2 and you're out quite a bit of money. Or the private equity firm experiences legal issues preventing the deal from going thru. Or who knows. In other words I would not suggest cashing out the 401K and putting it into Dell stock at this time.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
> I'm no economist, but
That's ok, they don't know what they're talking about either.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
You know, where the price of goods keeps going up in nominal terms; kind of like how a standard desktop PC used to be priced at $3,000 back in the early nineties and is now within spitting distance of $300.
Oh, wait, maybe this industry is different.
Dude, if you keep buying yourself you're gonna go BLIND!
C|N>K
you could treat that 27 cents as intrest.
That would be filed on your 1040 as a capital gain BTW... And taxed at capgain rate, long term if you buy now (not advised, just saying)
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
And the CEO that led them to this place.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
More importantly, they are getting Dell tech support.
My condolences.
Actually Dell's Enterprise level support is fairly good. Fortunately I haven't had much experience with consumer level support.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Dell - the company and the person - are taking a very big gamble here. The company has been trying, mostly unsuccessfully, for the past several years to get a foothold in the service business. By most measures they have not done very well. Part of that probably stems from their terrible reputation in PC support in the consumer market. Perhaps they feel shackled by the PC business and quarterly reports and Sarbanes-Oxley, etc. And those are valid concerns.
But...Michael Dell is still going to be in charge. And they are going to have a lot of debt. And PC sales still make up a majority of their profits. In the short term it will probably mean lots of layoffs...particularly for people in the non-service sector of the company.
Cash always returns about zero percent. Inflation today is low – but interest rates on cash are somewhere around .1%. But even during normal times, interest on cash accounts are about the same as inflation. Basically, cash sits on the book with no economic impact.
The common wisdom is that it’s best to give excess cash back to the shareholders. If the shareholder (owner) wants they can reinvest it in dell – or they can decide what to do with it.
anyone think microsoft is taking a step to owning a hardware platform? uefi + comfortable share in a computer manufacturer theyve had lock-in status with for decades anyhow. All thats left is to dab a bit of solder on those CPU pins and theyre apple in a suit.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The stock market seems to be full of dick heads and no talent people posing as analysts.
You switched to HP because Dell's order process was so frustrating and complex? Isn't that like switching to Chrysler because you thinks GM's "finish" quality looks cheap?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
MS has a game console and a phone. Maybe now they are going to have their own actual consumer computer? Bet the other hardware retailers are gonna just love that...
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Dudes, you're getting a Dell (Inc)!
Dude, You're getting Dell!
Actually Dell's Enterprise level support is fairly good.
The only downside is, you have to pay for it in gold-pressed latinum.
Ezekiel 23:20
I have owned one Dell laptop. I had a problem with that laptop, so I was forced to call customer support. It was an awesome experience. They walked me through all the regular nonsense (restart, etc), had me run one diagnostic and tell them the results, and they sent a tech out to fix the issue within a week. Overall, 8.5/10 experience (it would have been higher, but it was a new laptop and shouldn't have had hardware issues to begin with. But the tech was hot.)
Disclaimer: I am not now, nor have I ever been employed by, paid by in any fashion, or at all related to Dell computers. Except for that laptop, that is.
More importantly, they are getting Dell tech support.
My condolences.
Actually Dell's Enterprise level support is fairly good. Fortunately I haven't had much experience with consumer level support.
Back in the early days of the company had excellent quality products and support was excellent. Much more recently we've elimitated them as a source due to quality issues. Doesn't matter how good the support is if the machines keep failing.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Nokia has stopped with R&D, fired loads of staff and outsourced its production to cheap countries.
Its strengths were its serious R&D, the loyalty of its staff and its Scandinavian build quality.
You can ALWAYS turn a profit by slaughtering yourself, organs sell for a lot, just sell them off and you will be RICH! And dead. But RICH!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
How is Dell already reporting is 2013 third quarter? Exactly what calendar dates are covered by that quarter?
In the US, large corporation are allowed to define their own fiscal "year" for financial reporting as long as it is constitent with the rules (basically it must be 52-53 weeks long and close at the end of a month or a day of the week). Dell uses a fiscal year that ends on the friday nearest to january 31st. Often corporations choose fiscal years to match with other similar companies, or to smooth out revenue reporting (e.g., say Q3 captures all of the christmas revenue, minus the returns). The number is set by the year of the 4th quarter.
For example, the US government uses the following fiscal year for FY2013
1st quarter: 1 October 2012 – 31 December 2012
2nd quarter: 1 January 2013 – 31 March 2013
3rd quarter: 1 April 2013 – 30 June 2013
4th quarter: 1 July 2013 – 30 September 2013
Not to flame, but I'm done with them.
When it comes to big-box, I've been a big + trusted fan of Dell over the decades. They weren't bullet proof, but they were fairly solid. Unfortunately, my last 3 purchases from them have been... well... quite bad. And by bad, I don't mean "the drivers on their support page stunk" but "their choosing of custom hardware has stunk"
My big Dell tower: had a usb / SD module at the top that was shorting out. Replaced it, still shorting out. I didn't even have to get to Windows to have problems with it. I remove it, it's fine. OK, so no big deal... it was the equivalent of the appendix. The machine went more-or-less fine without it, though it took me a while to trace it down to that part. That part was annoying: as it was the last thing I thought of checking after video card, ram, hard drive, etc.
My next purchase was a laptop. Now here I wasn't going to fault them THAT much because it was a cheap cheap laptop. So this one I kind of blame on myself for buying garbage.
Now... recently, I bought an Alienware machine. It was great in concept: the X51 is a gaming machine. Not bleeding edge, but solid, in the form factor of an XBox. I figured: great, a solid development machine that can my a multimedia pc under my TV when it ages out. Unfortunately they included a custom-built lower-voltage nVidia 660 GTX that had a slew of problems that they're now trying to deny. At first the support guys stickied the post and were actively working with customers to find the cause of the issues. Once found, support unsticky-ed the post and started pushing it down by replying to other posts for no reason (pushing it onto 2nd/3rd page).
So, I'm done with them. Even if just anecdotal... 3 times in a row is enough to make me look elsewhere.
Currently at dell.com I see several machines for $369.
So, sparky, anybody who likes Dell systems, and has had good experiences with their support and dares to tell about it on a public forum is, to you, a shill... Have I got that right?? I also like Dell's enterprise systems (Optiplex/Precision/PowerEdge/Latitude), and the support for those systems. Since until about 2 years ago, I'd been supporting about 200 of these Dell systems in my then day-job, and have been doing so for 10+ years, I think I might know a thing or two about these Dell systems, and have some credibility in what I've experienced with their support... But you go right ahead and keep calling people shills who haven't had the same experience as you....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Dell's fiscal year runs feb to jan and is 11 months ahead of calendar year by label. Last week it just finished FY13 and it is now in Q1FY14.
You still sound like a shill.
He might sound like it, but I have no reason to either, and I've generally had pretty darn good experiences, both with consumer and with enterprise support. I've only dealt with enterprise support once, but it was super easy.
Sure, you might have to go through the effort and it might take you an hour with support, but you can't expect them to send out someone to replace a motherboard without asking questions. I've found, if you answer the questions correctly, act very cooperative, and try just a couple things they suggest without complaining, you can usually get what you want in 20 minutes or less.
You must realize, that for everyone that calls and actually knows what they are talking about, there are 10 that call and say their "hard drive box" is bad, get upset, and ended up not having the thing plugged in - or worse, someone of that level of intelligence that demands ram chips or something be fixed because their very knowledgeable nephew said so.
.
But you go right ahead and keep calling people shills who haven't had the same experience as you....
..A conservatives definition of Truth is VERY different from a liberal's definition of truth".. like day and night...
cute combination.
Don't expect much if the keep the same clown car full of managers they have now.
Their tech support is really good* - they pay attention to who their customers are. And even lately, when q/a seems to be down a bit, they're still good.
Most of you, you really want self-abuse, call Sun/Oracle "tech support". Maybe you'll get the engineer in Chile, like I did. Or the support for daytime by an engineer who *only* worked third shift.
As it is, their linux support's excellent, at least now.
mark
Good for Dell. Bad for Wall Street. By not looking beyond their noses, and caring only for short term bottom line, the Wall Street culture is going to either destroy companies by forcing them to focus on profits rather that quality, or make them run away and go private, like Dell is doing right now.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... time... to... die...
Actually Dell's Enterprise level support is fairly good. Fortunately I haven't had much experience with consumer level support.
For somewhat mysterious reasons, they semi-bifurcated their consumer line into "Inspiron" and "XPS". There is a lot of overlap in specs(most models on one side of the fence are just a plastics kit away from a model on the other, though 'XPS' usually has more of the optional upgrades pre-added); but the "XPS" line also comes with nicer support, reasonably close to the support on enterprise desktop/laptop stuff, with just a few more dumb questions ahead of time because they aren't sure you are an actual tech.
"Inspiron" support is rather less exciting.
Back in the day, I bought a server (400 SC) for $274 and it was DOA with a dead motherboard. A guy showed up the very next morning at 8 AM and replaced it for free. So I had a GREAT experience. Granted, that was a long time ago, but Dell has been good in the past.
Contrast this with the HP guy who used to show up at our company with no tools or parts to meet the 4 hour requirement, and then take a week or 2 to come back and put in a RAM chip (of course we stuck a good RAM chip in there and put the PC back in service while he was gone, and then told the user we needed to "fix" her machine again when he came back and replaced the bad RAM chip, which we had put back in there).
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
You still sound like a shill.
He sounds to me like someone who was a Dell customer a long time ago. Don't forget, they used to have the best-rated customer service in the whole PC market. I was quite happy with them myself back around '96 or so when I was using Dell machines to run NeXTSTEP.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
When one talks about affecting the bottom line, it is usually proper to quote Net Income, as it is the bottom line of the Income Statement. Revenue is the at the top, and while it may affect profit, if you have gains in your cost efficiencies, you might still be neutral on your Net Profit.
Yes, I remember those days fondly. My experience with them has been on the consumer side of things for many years as a tech. Many customers brought in machines to a computer store I worked at, which usually landed up with one of the techs having to call Dell and get a part replaced under warranty. It used to be a simple process, which it likely still is on the enterprise/business support side, but it was nothing but frustration on the home/consumer side as the years went on. My only experience with their enterprise side was at my current job when the IT dept had to replace a bunch of those infamous Optiplex GX270s with the bad caps.
I remember being able to order things like replacement laptop keyboards from them without a problem. I used to call them up, get someone in Texas on the phone, state that the keyboard was broken (long out of warranty) and needed a replacement. All they used to ask for was the express service code to confirm that the right part was ordered and a credit card for payment. Just try doing that today.
Dude you're getting Windows 8 and Gorilla Arms. Shush about our Monopoly and say bye-bye to our Linux servers. Ho Ho Ho
The primary purpose of the deal is to repatriate a bunch of cash without having to pay corporate taxes on it. A lot of the money originally started in the US, but was hidden overseas. This brings it back. The shareholders all get a premium on the share price, giving them their cut. Dell borrows a bunch of money to pay the shareholders, then uses their offshore accounts to pay the banks back, because loan payments are tax-free. And since it's all capital gains, the shareholders are all paying less on it than you pay on your wages. It's how the 1% rolls - good for them, not so much for you.
My office is all dell. Server died a few Fridays ago. Never saw anything like it before - start up, get to "applying computer settings", flash bluescreen, restart and do the same thing again. After not to long on the phone, running some diagnostics which didn't include asking for the error code, or acting at all interested when I tried to tell them what it was, they resolved to send a new motherboard and raid controller. Forgot to tell you, but i was clear to them, the situation was repeatable booting from the cd. Tuesday arrived, the tech installed it, same thing. Resolved that it must be software, never mind that it was blue screening from the cd, formatted the drive and same thing. Called again, after hours where you knew the tech was trying to get me to hang up, he offered new ram and CPU. I said maybe they should send new drives too, since that would be all that hadn't been replaced. At that point, he had me go in the raid bios, destroy the raid and create a new one, and that fixed it. I stayed til 6 in the morning restoring the thing and couldn't help but think that they must not track error codes at all - they never asked for them and didn't wan them when offered. Can't help but think hat if they did such simple things my office wouldn't have been dead in the water for three days. I mean, im paying for support, not just a tech to mindlessly send replacement parts that won't fix the issue.
So, no, no mor dell for me. I'll try my chances elsewhere.
Yes, sort of, explained partially by the time until you actually get the cash. Should have bought 3 months ago and you would have seen a 35% return, which ain't bad
No, I stand by my original comparison. I find the "fit and finish" of Chrysler products to be extremely cheap looking. I find the order process to place an order from HP to be extremely byzantine, generally I give up before I figure out whether they even offer the configuration I am looking for.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Yeah, they really pissed away everything that got them to the top in the first place.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
by the Feds? It probably will be, thanks to lobbyists and bribes^H^H^H^H^H^Hcontributions... but how could it be?
A company with Microsoft's history of anti-competitive behavior, that commands a 90%+ market share in desktop operating systems, and nearly that in office suites, all while raking in monster revenues year after year, should NOT be allowed to have any interest in a PC hardware company, and certainly not one the size of Dell.
We see how other big corporate deals have "benefited" the customer and general public so much (i.e. they never do).... will the FTC and Justice Department and other regulatory bodies ever learn their lesson?
This is pretty reminiscent of when Apple ended the short lived Mac cloning business and bought out Power Computing. Microsoft wants to enter the hardware business, and the stage is pretty much set for them to either acquire Dell, or make it a partially owned Microsoft company. If they repeat the same thing w/ Nokia, then they'll be a full fledged hardware company like Apple - they'll be making Surface tablets, Dell will be making their PCs and Nokia their phones. Others can forget about Microsoft being this somewhat neutral company that simply provides all PC makers their OSs
My experience of Dell tech support - during the time I had a Dell - was pretty good. They were one of the few who didn't put me to some girl in India who didn't know the difference between a hub and a router. As for the CEO, one can't blame Dell's CEO if Microsoft has suddenly decided that it wants to get into the hardware business. Dell's losing share has been a part of the PCs losing share story, and they would have been an 'also-ran' had they gotten into the Android market. Their options were indeed limited, and this move looks more like them getting freed of shareholder pressure while they figure out their next game plan - whether it's just being a procurement arm of Microsoft PCs (they aint exactly manufacturing, since it's the Taiwanese guys Gigabyte & Asustek who manufacture PCs, not Dell) or using their brand to come out w/ a new range of products.
Dunno what the GP's beef is. The one time I called Dell, some years ago, I had a problem w/ my system, and got an American on the phone, who described to me 'System Restore', and that solved my problem really quick. The next time I had a problem w/ that PC was 5 years later, when something on the motherboard quit, and it was time to get a new PC anyway.
OTOH, there was a time when I called another company's support, which was offshore, and the girl on the other line was an Indian who asked me to disconnect my router. My home configuration was my internet connection to a hub (not switch), and from that hub, I had one connection to the home PC, and another to the work PC (Wi Fi was just getting started in the market). Both weren't working, so when I called them, she asked me whether I had things connected through a router. I didn't - I had just the main DSL modem, whose output then went to a hub, which then went to these 2 computers. Towards the end of the call, I mentioned that I'll try one more thing - connecting the DSL directly to the PC, and the lady on the other end mentioned that she'd asked me to do that at the beginning itself. I told her - you asked me whether I had a router, and I don't. She protested that they were the same thing, and I asked her, incredulously, 'You are a networking person, and think that a hub & router is the same thing'? Of course, she wasn't - she was probably just some ignoramus pulled out of Podunkpur, India, just b'cos she knew some English, but anybody who is batting for a company that's trying to keep you connected ought to know those basic things.
By comparison, the company I work for still runs calendar fiscal years, and it's a giant pain in the ass to get all of the auditing and reporting done in late December when nobody wants to do any work. It happens to work out on paper, however, because that's when our volume is lowest. A company that deals in retail and depends on Christmas sales, however, is still licking its wounds from the Christmas rush, and only slows down in Jan or Feb. So it makes sense to make that the end of the fiscal year.
It was 2012.
I promise you I'm not a shill
PROMISES ON THE INTERNET ARE ALWAYS TRUE
Anyway - I bought a mid-grade laptop. It started shutting off randomly. It ran just fine if you kept pressure on the battery. So, my first thought was bad connection of some kind. So I kept it plugged in. Then it started randomly shutting off when it was plugged in.
In the end, the MOBO was smoked, and was probably bad when I received the thing. I called their cs, they walked me through two or three (what I call) idiot catch steps, decided it was something bigger, and sent a tech out. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy.
This is the first time I've been called a shill, though. Pretty exciting. Look at my past comments. I'm plainly just a person. . . .
My experience of Dell tech support - during the time I had a Dell - was pretty good. They were one of the few who didn't put me to some girl in India who didn't know the difference between a hub and a router.
You know, I wish people with your experiences actually had audio recordings of said experiences.
I have owned one Dell laptop. I had a problem with that laptop, so I was forced to call customer support. It was an awesome experience. They walked me through all the regular nonsense (restart, etc), had me run one diagnostic and tell them the results, and they sent a tech out to fix the issue within a week. Overall, 8.5/10 experience (it would have been higher, but it was a new laptop and shouldn't have had hardware issues to begin with. But the tech was hot.)
Disclaimer: I am not now, nor have I ever been employed by, paid by in any fashion, or at all related to Dell computers. Except for that laptop, that is.
What in the heck kind of support did you pay for and what country do you live in? I've said it before and I'll say it again - I wish people like you had audio and video recordings of these experiences. Every story and personal experience I've had is the POLAR OPPOSITE.
So, sparky, anybody who likes Dell systems, and has had good experiences with their support and dares to tell about it on a public forum is, to you, a shill... Have I got that right?? I also like Dell's enterprise systems (Optiplex/Precision/PowerEdge/Latitude), and the support for those systems. Since until about 2 years ago, I'd been supporting about 200 of these Dell systems in my then day-job, and have been doing so for 10+ years, I think I might know a thing or two about these Dell systems, and have some credibility in what I've experienced with their support... But you go right ahead and keep calling people shills who haven't had the same experience as you....
If someone has nothing but negative experiences and hears someone else say they are awesome will generally react with a "WTF" followed by a "tell me all about it so I can believe you; here's MY story."
My office is all dell. Server died a few Fridays ago. Never saw anything like it before - start up, get to "applying computer settings", flash bluescreen, restart and do the same thing again. After not to long on the phone, running some diagnostics which didn't include asking for the error code, or acting at all interested when I tried to tell them what it was, they resolved to send a new motherboard and raid controller. Forgot to tell you, but i was clear to them, the situation was repeatable booting from the cd. Tuesday arrived, the tech installed it, same thing. Resolved that it must be software, never mind that it was blue screening from the cd, formatted the drive and same thing. Called again, after hours where you knew the tech was trying to get me to hang up, he offered new ram and CPU. I said maybe they should send new drives too, since that would be all that hadn't been replaced. At that point, he had me go in the raid bios, destroy the raid and create a new one, and that fixed it. I stayed til 6 in the morning restoring the thing and couldn't help but think that they must not track error codes at all - they never asked for them and didn't wan them when offered. Can't help but think hat if they did such simple things my office wouldn't have been dead in the water for three days. I mean, im paying for support, not just a tech to mindlessly send replacement parts that won't fix the issue.
So, no, no mor dell for me. I'll try my chances elsewhere.
Not to sound rude, but if you have a tech who can install motherboards, why can't that tech discern between a hardware and a software problem?
Something is missing here. If you have the ability to make choices, what went wrong here?
Actually Dell's Enterprise level support is fairly good. Fortunately I haven't had much experience with consumer level support.
For somewhat mysterious reasons, they semi-bifurcated their consumer line into "Inspiron" and "XPS". There is a lot of overlap in specs(most models on one side of the fence are just a plastics kit away from a model on the other, though 'XPS' usually has more of the optional upgrades pre-added); but the "XPS" line also comes with nicer support, reasonably close to the support on enterprise desktop/laptop stuff, with just a few more dumb questions ahead of time because they aren't sure you are an actual tech.
"Inspiron" support is rather less exciting.
Should I even inquire what the price tag on the XPS line you're referencing is? ;)
Haven't ordered Dell machines for over 5 years now. HP gets all of our business.
How's that goin' for ya?
No, you are the cretin here, since she wanted me to connect the DSL modem directly to the PC, and not through anything in between, so she obviously wasn't thinking about that as the router. And even if you were correct, which you couldn't be, given how clueless you are about the differences between single port DSL modems and multi port routers, she would still be wrong (for a different reason) if she asked me to disconnect the router (i.e. the modem in your imaginary scenario) from the connection, since the PC didn't have the sort of serial port that would enable it to receive signals directly from the phone line w/o going through the modem.
You are about as brilliant as the lady I spoke to on that occasion.
That's the especially baffling thing: theoretically, "XPS" is supposed to come in with the price premium over "Inspiron" that you would expect, but a bit cheaper than "Optiplex"; but Dell's enthusiasm for constantly-changing-but-sometimes-quite-large deals/discount codes/temporary sales/different prices between home and 'small business' stores/etc. actually meant that you could get a given 'XPS' for less than the closest equivalent 'Inspiron' depending on the phase of the moon.
That's the especially baffling thing: theoretically, "XPS" is supposed to come in with the price premium over "Inspiron" that you would expect, but a bit cheaper than "Optiplex"; but Dell's enthusiasm for constantly-changing-but-sometimes-quite-large deals/discount codes/temporary sales/different prices between home and 'small business' stores/etc. actually meant that you could get a given 'XPS' for less than the closest equivalent 'Inspiron' depending on the phase of the moon.
I heard you can get $25 off any order over $250 today because it's 4 days past quarter moon. lol