Analysis of binary code topology for dynamic analysis
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Dell stylized as DELL is an American multinational computer technology company based in Round Rock, TexasUnited States, that develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Eponymously named after its founder, Michael Dellthe company is one of the largest technological corporations in the world, employing more thanpeople worldwide.
Dell sells personal computers PCsserversdata storage devicesnetwork switchessoftwarecomputer peripheralsHDTVscameras, printers, MP3 players, and electronics built by other manufacturers. The company is well known for its innovations in supply chain management and electronic commerceparticularly its direct-sales model and its "build-to-order" or "configure to order" approach to manufacturing—delivering individual PCs configured to customer specifications.
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 for enterprise customers. Dell was listed at number 51 in the Fortune list, until InMichael Dell brought in Lee Walker, a 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 Walker retired in 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. Bain consultant Kevin Rollins persuaded Michael Dell to pull out of these deals, believing they would be money losers in the long run. 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 earlyDell created an internal sales and marketing group dedicated to serving the home market and introduced a product line designed especially for individual users. From toDell enjoyed steady growth and it gained market share from competitors even during industry slumps. Dell grew the fastest in the early s. In the mids, 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. Three years later, Dell passed Compaq as the top provider of Intel-based servers, with 31 percent of the market.
InDell expanded its product line to include televisions, handheldsdigital audio players, and printers. Inthe company was rebranded as simply "Dell Inc. Under Rollins, Dell began to loosen its ties to Microsoft and Intel, the two companies responsible for Dell's dominance in the PC business.
During that time, Dell acquired Alienware[28] which introduced several new items to Dell products, including AMD microprocessors.
To prevent cross-market products, Dell continues to run Alienware as a separate entity, but still a wholly owned subsidiary. Dell's price advantage was tied to its ultra-lean manufacturing for desktop PCs, [32] but this became less important as savings became harder to find inside the company's supply chain, and as competitors such as Hewlett-Packard and Acer made their PC manufacturing operations more efficient to match Dell, weakening Dell's traditional price differentiation.
As a result, the company was selling a greater proportion of inexpensive PCs than before, which eroded profit margins.
Despite plans of expanding into other global regions and product segments, Dell was heavily dependent on U. The last cycle started aroundthree or so years after companies started buying PCs ahead of the perceived Y2K problems, and corporate clients were not expected to upgrade again until extensive testing of Microsoft's Windows Vista expected in earlyputting the next upgrade cycle around Dell had long stuck by its direct sales model.
Consumers had become the main drivers of PC sales in recent years, [35] yet there had a decline in consumers purchasing PCs through the Web or on the phone, as increasing numbers were visiting consumer electronics retail stores to try out the devices first. Dell's rivals in the PC industry, HP, Gateway and Acer, had a long retail presence and so were well poised to take advantage of the consumer shift.
Dell had a reputation as a company that relied upon supply chain efficiencies to sell established technologies at low prices, instead of being an innovator. Dell's reputation for poor customer service, sincewhich was exacerbated as it moved call centres offshore and as its growth outstripped its technical support infrastructure, came under increasing scrutiny on the Web. The original Dell model was known for high customer satisfaction when PCs sold for thousands but by the s, the company could not justify that level of service when computers in the same lineup sold for hundreds.
Hunter, who noted that Dell's DNA of cost-cutting "got in the way," aimed to reduce call transfer times and have call center representatives resolve inquiries in one call. There was also criticism that Dell used faulty components for its PCs, particularly the Dell announced a change campaign called "Dell 2.
With the return of Michael Dell as CEO, the company saw immediate changes in operations, the exodus of many senior vice-presidents and new personnel brought in from outside the company. These include elimination of bonuses for employees with some discretionary awards, reduction in the number of managers reporting directly to Michael Dell from 20 to 12, and reduction of " bureaucracy ".
On April 23,Dell announced the closure of one of its biggest Canadian call-centers in Kanata, Ontarioterminating approximately employees, with of those redundancies effective on the spot, and with the official closure of the center scheduled for the summer.
The call-center had opened in after the city of Ottawa won a bid to host it. Less than a year later, Dell planned to double its workforce to nearly 3, workers add a new building. These plans were reversed, due to a high Canadian dollar that made the Ottawa staff relatively expensive, and also as part of Dell's turnaround, which involved moving these call-center jobs offshore to cut costs.
By the late s, Dell's "configure to order" approach of manufacturing—delivering individual PCs configured to customer specifications from its US facilities was no longer as efficient or competitive with high-volume Asian contract manufacturers as PCs became powerful low-cost commodities.
Dell's contract with the state required them to repay the incentives for failing to meet the conditions, and they sold the North Carolina plant to Herbalife. The Miami, Floridafacility of its Alienware subsidiary remains in operation, while Dell continues to produce its servers its most profitable products in Austin, Texas.
The release of Apple's iPad tablet computer had a negative impact on Dell and other major PC vendors, as consumers switched away from desktop and laptop PCs.
Dell's own mobility division has not managed success with developing smartphones or tablets, whether running Windows or Google Android. InfoWorld suggested that Dell and other OEMs saw tablets as a short-term, low-investment opportunity running Google Androidan approach that neglected user interface and failed to gain long term market traction with consumers.
In DecemberDell suffered its first decline in holiday sales in five years, despite the introduction of Windows 8. In the shrinking PC industry, Dell continued to lose market share, as it dropped below Lenovo in to fall to number three in the world. Dell and fellow American contemporary Hewlett Packard came under pressure from Asian PC manufacturers LenovoAsus, and Acer, all of which had lower production costs and willing to accept lower profit margins. In addition, while the Asian PC vendors had been improving their quality and design, for instance Lenovo's ThinkPad series was winning corporate customers away from Dell's laptops, Dell's customer service and reputation had been slipping.
Dell has been attempting to offset its declining PC business, which still accounted for half of its revenue and generates steady cash flow, [64] by expanding into the enterprise market with servers, networking, software, and services.
The founder of Dell, Michael Dell, said of the February offer "I believe this transaction will open an exciting new chapter for Dell, our customers and team members". In MayDell joined his board in voting for his offer. After the buyout the newly private Dell offered a Voluntary Separation Programme that they expected to reduce their workforce by up to seven percent. The reception to the program so exceeded the expectations that Dell may be forced to hire new staff to make up for the losses.
On October 12,Dell announced its intent to acquire the enterprise software and storage company EMC Corporation. The announcement came two years after Dell Inc. The combined business is expected to address the markets for scale-out architectureconverged infrastructure and private cloud computingplaying to the strengths of both EMC and Dell. Dell's offer will remain open for 60 days during which EMC can seek other possible buyers, but this is believed to be unlikely: On September 7,Dell Inc.
The new company, Dell Technologies, employs aboutpeople globally and will maintain operations in Hopkinton, Mass. Dell's headquarters is located in Round Rock, Texas. Dell previously had its headquarters in the Arboretum complex in northern Austin, Texas. The top floor continued to hold Dell's board room, demonstration center, and visitor meeting room. Less than one month prior to August 29,Dell moved 1, customer support and telephone sales employees to Round Rock.
ByDell was moving its headquarters to Round Rock. One building of the Round Rock headquarters, Round Rock 3, had space for 6, employees and was scheduled to be completed in November Las Cimas 2 housed Dell's executives, the investment operations, and some corporate functions. The US and India are the only countries that have all Dell's business functions and provide support globally: From its early beginnings, Dell operated as a pioneer in the "configure to order" approach to manufacturing—delivering individual PCs configured to customer specifications.
In contrast, most PC manufacturers in those times delivered large orders to intermediaries on a quarterly basis. To minimize the delay between purchase and delivery, Dell has a general policy of manufacturing its products close to its customers.
This also allows for implementing a just-in-time JIT manufacturing approach, which minimizes inventory costs. Low inventory is another signature of the Dell business model—a critical consideration in an industry where components depreciate very rapidly.
Dell's manufacturing process covers assembly, software installation, functional testing including "burn-in"and quality control. Throughout most of the company's history, Dell manufactured desktop machines in-house and contracted out manufacturing of base notebooks for configuration in-house. Assembly of desktop computers for the North American market formerly took place at Dell plants in Austin, Texas original location and Lebanon, Tennessee opened inwhich have been closed in and earlyrespectively.
The Miami, Florida facility of its Alienware subsidiary remains in operation, while Dell continues to produce its servers its most profitable products in Austin, Texas.
Dell assembled computers for the EMEA market at the Limerick facility in the Republic of Ireland, and once employed about 4, people in that country. Dell began manufacturing in Limerick in and went on to become Ireland's largest exporter of goods and its second-largest company and foreign investor.
EMF2 previously a Wang facility, later occupied by Flextronicssituated in Castletroy closed in[ citation needed ] and Dell Inc. Whether this facility will remain in Ireland is not certain. Dell started production there in autumn Dell opened plants in Penang, Malaysia inand in Xiamen, China in Indian-made products bear the "Made in India" mark.
In the Chennai facility had the target of producingdesktop PCs, and plans envisaged it starting to produce notebook PCs and other products in the second half of Dell moved desktop and PowerEdge server manufacturing for the South American market from the Eldorado do Sul plant opened into a new plant in Hortolandia, Brazil in The corporation markets specific brand names to different market segments.
Dell UltraSharp is further a high-end brand of monitors. Dell service and support brands include the Dell Solution Station extended domestic support services, previously "Dell on Call"Dell Support Center extended support services abroadDell Business Support a commercial service-contract that provides an industry-certified technician with a lower call-volume than in normal queuesDell Everdream Desktop Management " Software as a Service " remote-desktop managementoriginally a SaaS company founded by Elon Musk 's cousin, Lyndon Rivewhich Dell bought in []and Your Tech Team a support-queue available to home users who purchased their systems either through Dell's website or through Dell phone-centers.
Discontinued products and brands include Axim PDA ; discontinued April 9,[] Dimension home and small office desktop computers; discontinued JulyDell Digital Jukebox MP3 player; discontinued AugustDell PowerApp application-based serversand Dell Optiplex desktop and tower computers previously supported to run server and desktop operating systems.
In November it emerged that several Dell computers had shipped with an identical pre-installed root certificate known as "eDellRoot". Also in Novembera 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.
The board consists of nine directors. Michael Dellthe founder of the company, serves as chairman of the board and chief executive officer. 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.
