Dell

context: Dell was listed at number 51 in the Fortune 500 list, until 2014. After going private in 2013, the newly confidential nature of its financial information prevents the company from being ranked by Fortune. In 2014 it was the third largest PC vendor in the world after Lenovo and HP. Dell is currently the #1 shipper of PC monitors in the world. Dell is the sixth largest company in Texas by total revenue, according to Fortune magazine. It is the second largest non-oil company in Texas – behind AT&T – and the largest company in the Greater Austin area. 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.
qas: answers: text: 51
question: What number was dell on the Fortune 500 list until 2014?

answers: text: 2013
question: When did Dell go private?

answers: text: PC monitors
question: Dell is currently the #1 shipper of what?

answers: text: Texas
question: In which state is Dell the sixth largest company?

answers: text: third largest
question: What PC vendor rank did Dell hold?

context: Originally, Dell did not emphasize the consumer market, due to the higher costs and unacceptably 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.
qas: answers: text: consumer market
question: What market did Dell ignore at first?

answers: text: 1996
question: When did Dell's internet site gain popularity?

answers: text: going up
question: What was happening to Dell's average sale to individuals?

answers: text: 1997
question: When did Dell create their internal marketing group?

context: Dell had long stuck by its direct sales model. Consumers had become the main drivers of PC sales in recent years, 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. The lack of a retail presence stymied Dell's attempts to offer consumer electronics such as flat-panel TVs and MP3 players. Dell responded by experimenting with mall kiosks, plus quasi-retail stores in Texas and New York.
qas: answers: text: direct
question: What sales model did Dell use for a long time?

answers: text: Consumers
question: Who were the main driving force behind PC sales?

answers: text: consumer electronics retail stores
question: Where were consumers going to buy devices other than online?

answers: text: retail
question: What market presence did Dell lack?

answers: text: Texas
question: What was one city that Dell tested retail stores in?

context: In the shrinking PC industry, Dell continued to lose market share, as it dropped below Lenovo in 2011 to fall to number three in the world. Dell and fellow American contemporary Hewlett Packard came under pressure from Asian PC manufacturers Lenovo, Asus, 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 remained the second-most profitable PC vendor, as it took 13 percent of operating profits in the PC industry during Q4 2012, behind Apple Inc.'s Macintosh that took 45 percent, seven percent at Hewlett Packard, six percent at Lenovo and Asus, and one percent for Acer.
qas: answers: text: PC
question: What industry was getting smaller?

answers: text: 2011
question: When did Dell fall behind Lenovo?

answers: text: Hewlett Packard
question: What other American company fell behind Lenovo with Dell?

answers: text: ThinkPad
question: What PC was taking corporate customers from Dell?

answers: text: Apple Inc.
question: What company was Dell behind in profits in 2012?

context: 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. The company's approach has changed, as cited in the 2006 Annual Report, which states, "We are continuing to expand our use of original design manufacturing partnerships and manufacturing outsourcing relationships." The Wall Street Journal reported in September 2008 that "Dell has approached contract computer manufacturers with offers to sell" their plants. By the late 2000s, 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.
qas: answers: text: manufacturing
question: Which of Dell's processes handles PC assembly, testing, and quality control?

answers: text: in-house
question: Where did Dell configure their notebooks?

answers: text: 2006
question: When did Dell describe their changing approach to manufacturing?

answers: text: The Wall Street Journal
question: Who reported that Dell was offering to sell their manufacturing plants?

answers: text: Asian
question: What manufacturers was Dell losing to efficiency-wise?

context: Dell advertisements have appeared in several types of media including television, the Internet, magazines, catalogs and newspapers. Some of Dell Inc's marketing strategies include lowering prices at all times of the year, free bonus products (such as Dell printers), and free shipping to encourage more sales and stave off competitors. In 2006, Dell cut its prices in an effort to maintain its 19.2% market share. This also cut profit-margins by more than half, from 8.7 to 4.3 percent. To maintain its low prices, Dell continues to accept most purchases of its products via the Internet and through the telephone network, and to move its customer-care division to India and El Salvador.
qas: answers: text: advertisements
question: What type of Dell media has appeared on TV, on the internet, and in magazines?

answers: text: free
question: One of Dell's marketing strategies is what kind of shipping?

answers: text: 2006
question: What year did Dell cut its prices to keep its market share?

answers: text: half
question: By how much did Dell cut it's margins when it cut its prices?

answers: text: Internet
question: Where does Dell take most of its purchases for its products?

context: In May 2008, Dell reached an agreement with office supply chain, Officeworks (part of Coles Group), to stock a few modified models in the Inspiron desktop and notebook range. These models have slightly different model numbers, but almost replicate the ones available from the Dell Store. Dell continued its retail push in the Australian market with its partnership with Harris Technology (another part of Coles Group) in November of the same year. In addition, Dell expanded its retail distributions in Australia through an agreement with discount electrical retailer, The Good Guys, known for "Slashing Prices". Dell agreed to distribute a variety of makes of both desktops and notebooks, including Studio and XPS systems in late 2008. Dell and Dick Smith Electronics (owned by Woolworths Limited) reached an agreement to expand within Dick Smith's 400 stores throughout Australia and New Zealand in May 2009 (1 year since Officeworks — owned by Coles Group — reached a deal). The retailer has agreed to distribute a variety of Inspiron and Studio notebooks, with minimal Studio desktops from the Dell range. As of 2009[update], Dell continues to run and operate its various kiosks in 18 shopping centres throughout Australia. On March 31, 2010 Dell announced to Australian Kiosk employees that they were shutting down the Australian/New Zealand Dell kiosk program.
qas: answers: text: 2008
question: What year did Dell make an agreement with Officeworks?

answers: text: Inspiron
question: What computer model did Dell ask Officeworks to carry?

answers: text: Australian
question: In which country did Dell partner with Harris Technology?

answers: text: Dick Smith Electronics
question: What company did Dell team with in late 2008?

answers: text: 2010
question: What year did Dell's Australian program end up shutting down?

context: On August 17, 2007, Dell Inc. announced that after an internal investigation into its accounting practices it would restate and reduce earnings from 2003 through to the first quarter of 2007 by a total amount of between $50 million and $150 million, or 2 cents to 7 cents per share. The investigation, begun in November 2006, resulted from concerns raised by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over some documents and information that Dell Inc. had submitted. It was alleged that Dell had not disclosed large exclusivity payments received from Intel for agreeing not to buy processors from rival manufacturer AMD. In 2010 Dell finally paid $100 million to settle the SEC's charges of fraud. Michael Dell and other executives also paid penalties and suffered other sanctions, without admitting or denying the charges.
qas: answers: text: accounting
question: What department did Dell launch an internal investigation on?

answers: text: $50 million
question: What was the minimum amount of earnings that would be restated by Dell's investigation?

answers: text: 2006
question: What year did Dell's internal investigation begin?

answers: text: AMD
question: Who did Dell agree to not buy processors from?

answers: text: $100 million
question: How much did Dell pay in fines to settle fraud charges against it?

context: 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. 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.
qas: answers: text: 1990s
question: What decade did Dell begin to sell things other than PCs?

answers: text: servers
question: IBM, Hewlett Packard, and Compaq were the major providers of what?

answers: text: PowerEdge
question: What servers did Dell create that they tried to break into the market with?

answers: text: 1998
question: What year did Dell's enterprise revenue make up a large chunk of its profit?

answers: text: Compaq
question: Which company did Dell exceed as a server provider?

context: The slowing sales growth has been attributed to the maturing PC market, which constituted 66% of Dell's sales, and analysts suggested that Dell needed to make inroads into non-PC businesses segments such as storage, services and servers. Dell's price advantage was tied to its ultra-lean manufacturing for desktop PCs, 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. Throughout the entire PC industry, declines in prices along with commensurate increases in performance meant that Dell had fewer opportunities to upsell to their customers (a lucrative strategy of encouraging buyers to upgrade the processor or memory). As a result, the company was selling a greater proportion of inexpensive PCs than before, which eroded profit margins. The laptop segment had become the fastest-growing of the PC market, but Dell produced low-cost notebooks in China like other PC manufacturers which eliminated Dell's manufacturing cost advantages, plus Dell's reliance on Internet sales meant that it missed out on growing notebook sales in big box stores. CNET has suggested that Dell was getting trapped in the increasing commoditization of high volume low margin computers, which prevented it from offering more exciting devices that consumers demanded.
qas: answers: text: PC
question: What market made up the majority of Dell's sales?

answers: text: price
question: What advantage did Dell hold in the PC market?

answers: text: manufacturing
question: What operation did Hewlett Packard and Acer make more efficient to compete with Dell?

answers: text: big box stores
question: Where did Dell miss out on sales due to relying on the internet?

answers: text: CNET
question: What company stated that Dell was preventing itself from innovating?

context: By the late 2000s, 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 closed plants that produced desktop computers for the North American market, including the Mort Topfer Manufacturing Center in Austin, Texas (original location) and Lebanon, Tennessee (opened in 1999) in 2008 and early 2009, respectively. The desktop production plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, received US$280 million in incentives from the state and opened in 2005, but ceased operations in November 2010. 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. Most of the work that used to take place in Dell's U.S. plants was transferred to contract manufacturers in Asia and Mexico, or some of Dell's own factories overseas. 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. On January 8, 2009, Dell announced the closure of its manufacturing plant in Limerick, Ireland, with the loss of 1,900 jobs and the transfer of production to its plant in Łodź in Poland.
qas: answers: text: 2000s
question: What decade did Dell's manufacturing process become less efficient?

answers: text: Mort Topfer Manufacturing Center
question: What plant did Dell close in Texas?

answers: text: North Carolina
question: What state was the Dell plant that received $280 million but was later closed?

answers: text: Herbalife
question: What company bought the North Carolina plant from Dell?

answers: text: Florida
question: The plant in what US state still remains in operation?

context: The announcement came two years after Dell Inc. returned to private ownership, claiming that it faced bleak prospects and would need several years out of the public eye to rebuild its business. It's thought that the company's value has roughly doubled since then. EMC was being pressured by Elliott Management, a hedge fund holding 2.2% of EMC's stock, to reorganize their unusual "Federation" structure, in which EMC's divisions were effectively being run as independent companies. Elliott argued this structure deeply undervalued EMC's core "EMC II" data storage business, and that increasing competition between EMC II and VMware products was confusing the market and hindering both companies. The Wall Street Journal estimated that in 2014 Dell had revenue of $27.3 billion from personal computers and $8.9bn from servers, while EMC had $16.5bn from EMC II, $1bn from RSA Security, $6bn from VMware, and $230 million from Pivotal Software. EMC owns around 80 percent of the stock of VMware. The proposed acquisition will maintain VMware as a separate company, held via a new tracking stock, while the other parts of EMC will be rolled into Dell. Once the acquisition closes Dell will again publish quarterly financial results, having ceased these on going private in 2013.
qas: answers: text: Elliott Management
question: What hedge fund group was pressuring EMC into restructuring?

answers: text: doubled
question: How much has Dell's value increased since they went private?

answers: text: The Wall Street Journal
question: What news source published revenue estimations between Dell and EMC?

answers: text: 2013
question: What year did Dell go private?

context: Dell opened plants in Penang, Malaysia in 1995, and in Xiamen, China in 1999. These facilities serve the Asian market and assemble 95% of Dell notebooks. Dell Inc. has invested[when?] an estimated $60 million in a new manufacturing unit in Chennai, India, to support the sales of its products in the Indian subcontinent. Indian-made products bear the "Made in India" mark. In 2007 the Chennai facility had the target of producing 400,000 desktop PCs, and plans envisaged it starting to produce notebook PCs and other products in the second half of 2007.[citation needed]
qas: answers: text: Malaysia
question: In what foreign country did Dell open plants in 1995?

answers: text: 95%
question: What percentage of Dell notebooks are assembled in their asian plants?

answers: text: $60 million
question: How much did Dell spend to construct a new plant in India?

answers: text: 400,000
question: How many PCs was Dell's Indian plant slated to make in 2007?

context: 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, William Gray, Judy Lewent, Klaus Luft, Alex Mandl, Michael A. Miles, 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 nomination of the board); and the Antitrust Compliance Committee, which attempts to prevent company practices from violating antitrust laws.[citation needed]
qas: answers: text: Michael Dell
question: Who is the founder of Dell?

answers: text: nine
question: How many board members does Dell have?

answers: text: five
question: How many committees are appointed by the board of directors at Dell?

answers: text: Audit Committee
question: Which Dell committee handles accounting issues?

answers: text: Antitrust Compliance Committee
question: Which Dell committee keeps the company from violating antitrust laws?

context: In the early 1990s, Dell sold its products through Best Buy, Costco and Sam's Club stores in the United States. Dell stopped this practice in 1994, citing low profit-margins on the business, exclusively distributing through a direct-sales model for the next decade. In 2003, Dell briefly sold products in Sears stores in the U.S. In 2007, Dell started shipping its products to major retailers in the U.S. once again, starting with Sam's Club and Wal-Mart. Staples, the largest office-supply retailer in the U.S., and Best Buy, the largest electronics retailer in the U.S., became Dell retail partners later that same year.
qas: answers: text: 1990s
question: What decade did Dell sell electronics through big box stores?

answers: text: 1994
question: what year did Dell stop selling products through physical retailers?

answers: text: Sears
question: What store did Dell sell electronics at in 2003?

answers: text: 2007
question: What year did Dell begin selling products at retailers again?

answers: text: Best Buy
question: Who is the largest electronics retailer in the US? 

context: Dell became the first company in the information technology industry to establish a product-recycling goal (in 2004) and completed the implementation of its global consumer recycling-program in 2006. On February 6, 2007, the National Recycling Coalition awarded Dell its "Recycling Works" award for efforts to promote producer responsibility. On July 19, 2007, Dell announced that it had exceeded targets in working to achieve a multi-year goal of recovering 275 million pounds of computer equipment by 2009. The company reported the recovery of 78 million pounds (nearly 40,000 tons) of IT equipment from customers in 2006, a 93-percent increase over 2005; and 12.4% of the equipment Dell sold seven years earlier.
qas: answers: text: product-recycling goal
question: What was Dell the first IT company to establish?

answers: text: 2006
question: What year did Dell enact its global consumer recycling program?

answers: text: 275 million pounds
question: How much electronics did Dell recycle by 2009?

answers: text: 2006
question: What year was 78 million pounds of Dell equipment recycled?

answers: text: 12.4%
question: What percentage of Dell electronics from the previous seven years were recycled?

context: 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 continues to remain secretive about their motherboard pin-outs for peripherals (such as MMC readers and power on/off switches and LEDs).
qas: answers: text: 1990s
question: What decade did Dell switch to PSUs and boards that had differently wired connectors?

answers: text: Dell-compatible parts
question: With what kind of parts were consumers able to upgrade their Dell systems with?

answers: text: 2003
question: What year did Dell revert its power connectors to industry standard ones?

answers: text: pin-outs
question: What part of their motherboards does Dell not reveal the specifications of?

context: 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.
qas: answers: text: 1984
question: When did Michael Dell found his company?

answers: text: $1,000
question: How much did Dell receive as capital from his family?

answers: text: University of Texas at Austin
question: What school did Dell go to and later drop out of while he ran his business?

answers: text: 1985
question: What year did Dell design its own computer?

answers: text: $73 million
question: How much did Dell profit in its first year?

context: From 1997 to 2004, Dell enjoyed steady growth 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. 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. 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.
qas: answers: text: steady growth
question: What did Dell enjoy from 1997 to 2004?

answers: text: Compaq
question: What company did Dell overtake as the largest PC manufacturer?

answers: text: $35 billion
question: How much were Dell profiting in 2002?

answers: text: Hewlett Packard
question: What company did Compaq merge with in 2002?

answers: text: Dell
question: What company was the fastest growing in the early 2000s?

context: 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. By the mid-2000s many analysts were looking to innovating companies as the next source of growth in the technology sector. Dell's low spending on R&D relative to its revenue (compared to IBM, Hewlett Packard, and Apple Inc.)—which worked well in the commoditized PC market—prevented it from making inroads into more lucrative segments, such as MP3 players and later mobile devices. Increasing spending on R&D would have cut into the operating margins that the company emphasized. Dell had done well with a horizontal organization that focused on PCs when the computing industry moved to horizontal mix-and-match layers in the 1980s, but by the mid-2000 the industry shifted to vertically integrated stacks to deliver complete IT solutions and Dell lagged far behind competitors like Hewlett Packard and Oracle.
qas: answers: text: supply chain efficiencies
question: What did Dell rely on that gave it a reputation?

answers: text: R&D
question: What did Dell maintain lower spending on than its competitors?

answers: text: horizontal
question: What was Dell's organizational structure considered?

answers: text: IT solutions
question: Dell lagged behind Hewlett Packard and Oracle in delivering what kind of solutions?

context: Dell announced a change campaign called "Dell 2.0," reducing the number of employees and diversifying the company's products. While chairman of the board after relinquishing his CEO position, Michael Dell still had significant input in the company during Rollins' years as CEO. 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. Michael Dell announced a number of initiatives and plans (part of the "Dell 2.0" initiative) to improve the company's financial performance. These include elimination of 2006 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". Jim Schneider retired as CFO and was replaced by Donald Carty, as the company came under an SEC probe for its accounting practices.
qas: answers: text: Dell 2.0
question: What was the name of Dell's change campaign?

answers: text: Michael Dell
question: Who relinquished his position as CEO to take a seat on the board?

answers: text: 2006
question: Michael Dell removed employee bonuses from what year with his new incentive?

answers: text: Donald Carty
question: Who replaced Jim Schneider as Dell CFO?

context: Dell has been attempting to offset its declining PC business, which still accounted for half of its revenue and generates steady cash flow, by expanding into the enterprise market with servers, networking, software, and services. It avoided many of the acquisition writedowns and management turnover that plagued its chief rival Hewlett Packard. Dell also managed some success in taking advantage of its high-touch direct sales heritage to establish close relationships and design solutions for clients. Despite spending $13 billion on acquisitions to diversify its portfolio beyond hardware, the company was unable to convince the market that it could thrive or made the transformation in the post-PC world, as it suffered continued declines in revenue and share price. Dell's market share in the corporate segment was previously a "moat" against rivals but this has no longer been the case as sales and profits have fallen precipitously.
qas: answers: text: half
question: How much of Dell's revenue was its PC division?

answers: text: Hewlett Packard
question: Who was Dell's main business rival?

answers: text: $13 billion
question: How much did Dell spend on acquiring different divisions?

answers: text: declines
question: What happened to Dell's revenue and share price in the post-PC market?

context: Dell facilities in the United States are located in Austin, Texas; Plano, Texas; Nashua, New Hampshire; Nashville, Tennessee; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Peoria, Illinois; Hillsboro, Oregon (Portland area); Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Eden Prairie, Minnesota (Dell Compellent); Bowling Green, Kentucky; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Miami, Florida. Facilities located abroad include Penang, Malaysia; Xiamen, China; Bracknell, UK; Manila, Philippines Chennai, India; Hyderabad, India; Noida, India; Hortolandia and Porto Alegre, Brazil; Bratislava, Slovakia; Łódź, Poland; Panama City, Panama; Dublin and Limerick, Ireland; and Casablanca, Morocco.
qas: answers: text: Nashua
question: What city is Dell's New Hampshire facility in?

answers: text: Nashville
question: What city is Dell's Tennessee facility in?

answers: text: Eden Prairie
question: What city is Dell's Minnesota facility in?

answers: text: Miami
question: What city is Dell's Florida facility in?

context: Assembly of desktop computers for the North American market formerly took place at Dell plants in Austin, Texas (original location) and Lebanon, Tennessee (opened in 1999), which have been closed in 2008 and early 2009, respectively. The plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina received $280 million USD in incentives from the state and opened in 2005, but ceased operations in November 2010, and Dell's contract with the state requires them to repay the incentives for failing to meet the conditions. Most of the work that used to take place in Dell's U.S. plants was transferred to contract manufacturers in Asia and Mexico, or some of Dell's own factories overseas. 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.
qas: answers: text: Austin
question: What city is Dell's Texas facility in?

answers: text: 1999
question: What year was Dell's Tennessee facility opened?

answers: text: North Carolina
question: What state was the Dell plant that received $280 million in incentives in?

answers: text: Asia
question: What continent did a lot of work from Dell's plants get transferred to?

answers: text: Alienware
question: What subsidiary of Dell remains operating in Florida?

context: Dell committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its global activities by 40% by 2015, with 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).
qas: answers: text: greenhouse gas
question: What emissions did Dell strive to reduce?

answers: text: 40%
question: By 2015, how much did Dell slate to reduce its emissions?

answers: text: 2011
question: What year did Dell rank 2nd for product greenness?

answers: text: Greenpeace
question: What organization scores electronics manufacturers based on how environmentally friendly their products are? 

context: In July 2009, Dell apologized after drawing the ire of the Taiwanese Consumer Protection Commission for twice refusing to honour a flood of orders against unusually low prices offered on its Taiwanese website. In the first instance, Dell offered a 19" LCD panel for $15. In the second instance, Dell offered its Latitude E4300 notebook at NT$18,558 (US$580), 70% lower than usual price of NT$60,900 (US$1900). Concerning the E4300, rather than honour the discount taking a significant loss, the firm withdrew orders and offered a voucher of up to NT$20,000 (US$625) a customer in compensation. The consumer rights authorities in Taiwan fined Dell NT$1 million (US$31250) for customer rights infringements. Many consumers sued the firm for the unfair compensation. A court in southern Taiwan ordered the firm to deliver 18 laptops and 76 flat-panel monitors to 31 consumers for NT$490,000 (US$15,120), less than a third of the normal price. The court said the event could hardly be regarded as mistakes, as the prestigious firm said the company mispriced its products twice in Taiwanese website within 3 weeks.
qas: answers: text: 2009
question: What year did Dell come under fire from the Taiwanese Consumer Protection Commission?

answers: text: 70%
question: What percent lower was Dell selling its notebooks in Taiwan?

answers: text: 19" LCD
question: What did dell sell for $19 in Taiwan?

answers: text: NT$1 million
question: How much did Taiwan fine Dell for its practices?

context: Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals, HDTVs, cameras, printers, MP3 players, 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 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 for enterprise customers.
qas: answers: text: supply chain
question: Innovations in what kind of management is Dell known for?

answers: text: direct-sales
question: What sales model did Dell follow?

answers: text: hardware
question: For the majority of Dell's existence, what were they a vendor of?

answers: text: Perot Systems
question: What company did Dell acquire in 2009?

answers: text: IT services
question: What market did Dell begin to compete in in 2009?

context: 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. Margins at retail were thin at best and Dell left the reseller channel in 1994. Rollins would soon join Dell full-time and eventually become the company President and CEO.
qas: answers: text: 1993
question: What year did Dell plan to sell PCs at retailers?

answers: text: Wal-Mart
question: What was one retailer that were going to sell Dell PCs?

answers: text: Kevin Rollins
question: Who convinced Michael Dell to not use retailers to sell PCs?

answers: text: CEO
question: What position at Dell did Kevin Rollins eventually attain?

context: In 1986, Michael Dell brought in Lee Walker, a 51-year-old venture capitalist, as president and chief operating officer, to serve as Michael's mentor and implement Michael'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.
qas: answers: text: 1986
question: What year did Michael Dell bring in Lee Walker to the company?

answers: text: board of directors
question: What did Lee Walker recruit members to Dell for?

answers: text: 1990
question: What year did Walker retire?

answers: text: CEO
question: What was Morton Meyerson's position at his former company?

context: Despite plans of expanding into other global regions and product segments, Dell was heavily dependent on U.S. corporate PC market, as desktop PCs sold to both commercial and corporate customers accounted for 32 percent of its revenue, 85 percent of its revenue comes from businesses, and Sixty-four percent of its revenue comes from North and South America, according to its 2006 third-quarter results. U.S. shipments of desktop PCs were shrinking, and the corporate PC market which purchases PCs in upgrade cycles had largely decided to take a break from buying new systems. The last cycle started around 2002, three 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 early 2007), putting the next upgrade cycle around 2008. Heavily depending on PCs, Dell had to slash prices to boost sales volumes, while demanding deep cuts from suppliers.
qas: answers: text: U.S
question: What country's PC market was Dell reliant on?

answers: text: 32 percent
question: What percentage of Dell's profits were desktop PCs being sold to commercial and corporate buyers?

answers: text: 2006
question: What year were Dell's PC profits shrinking?

answers: text: Microsoft's Windows Vista
question: What operating system was slated to be the next system upgrade for corporate clients?

context: 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. The Dell Streak was a failure commercially and critically due to its outdated OS, numerous bugs, and low resolution screen. InfoWorld suggested that Dell and other OEMs saw tablets as a short-term, low-investment opportunity running Google Android, an approach that neglected user interface and failed to gain long term market traction with consumers. Dell has responded by pushing higher-end PCs, such as the XPS line of notebooks, which do not compete with the Apple iPad and Kindle Fire tablets. The growing popularity of smartphones and tablet computers instead of PCs drove Dell's consumer segment to an operating loss in Q3 2012. In December 2012, Dell suffered its first decline in holiday sales in five years, despite the introduction of Windows 8.
qas: answers: text: mobility
question: Which division of Dell were unsuccessful in developing mobile devices?

answers: text: iPad
question: The release of what electronic had a negative impact on Dell?

answers: text: Streak
question: What Dell product was a commercial failure?

answers: text: XPS
question: What line of high end electronics did Dell create that failed to compete with Apple products?

answers: text: 2012
question: What year did Dell see its first decline in holiday sales?

context: Dell's reputation for poor customer service, since 2002, which 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 2000s, the company could not justify that level of service when computers in the same lineup sold for hundreds. Rollins responded by shifting Dick Hunter from head of manufacturing to head of customer service. 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. By 2006, Dell had spent $100 million in just a few months to improve on this, and rolled out DellConnect to answer customer inquiries more quickly. In July 2006, the company started its Direct2Dell blog, and then in February 2007, Michael Dell launched IdeaStorm.com, asking customers for advice including selling Linux computers and reducing the promotional "bloatware" on PCs. These initiatives did manage to cut the negative blog posts from 49% to 22%, as well as reduce the "Dell Hell" prominent on Internet search engines.
qas: answers: text: customer service
question: What did Dell have a poor reputation for?

answers: text: offshore
question: Where did Dell move its call centers?

answers: text: Dick Hunter
question: Which Dell employee was moved from head of manufacturing to head of customer service?

answers: text: $100 million
question: How much had Dell spent by 2006 on improving customer service?

context: In March 2013, the Blackstone Group and Carl Icahn expressed interest in purchasing Dell. In April 2013, Blackstone withdrew their offer, citing deteriorating business. Other private equity firms such as KKR & Co. and TPG Capital declined to submit alternative bids for Dell, citing the uncertain market for personal computers and competitive pressures, so the "wide-open bidding war" never materialized. Analysts said that the biggest challenge facing Silver Lake would be to find an “exit strategy” to profit from its investment, which would be when the company would hold an IPO to go public again, and one warned “But even if you can get a $25bn enterprise value for Dell, it will take years to get out.”
qas: answers: text: 2013
question: What year did the Blackstone Group express interest in acquiring Dell?

answers: text: KKR & Co
question: What was the first private equity firm to decide not to submit a bid for Dell?

answers: text: Silver Lake
question: What company did analysts feel would need to find an exit strategy to profit from acquiring Dell?

answers: text: $25bn
question: How much was the potential enterprise value of Dell?

context: On April 23, 2008, Dell announced the closure of one of its biggest Canadian call-centers in Kanata, Ontario, terminating approximately 1100 employees, with 500 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 2006 after the city of Ottawa won a bid to host it. Less than a year later, Dell planned to double its workforce to nearly 3,000 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. The company had also announced the shutdown of its Edmonton, Alberta office, losing 900 jobs. In total, Dell announced the ending of about 8,800 jobs in 2007–2008 — 10% of its workforce.
qas: answers: text: 2008
question: What year did Dell close its largest Canadian call center?

answers: text: 1100
question: How many employees lost jobs when Dell closed their call center?

answers: text: 3,000
question: How many workers did Dell plan to have at their Ottawa call center?

answers: text: 10%
question: What percentage of its workforce did Dell terminate in from 2007 to 2008?

context: The combined business is expected to address the markets for scale-out architecture, converged infrastructure and private cloud computing, playing to the strengths of both EMC and Dell. Commentators have questioned the deal, with FBR Capital Markets saying that though it makes a "ton of sense" for Dell, it's a "nightmare scenario that would lack strategic synergies" for EMC. Fortune said there was a lot for Dell to like in EMC's portfolio, but "does it all add up enough to justify tens of billions of dollars for the entire package? Probably not." The Register reported the view of William Blair & Company that the merger would "blow up the current IT chess board", forcing other IT infrastructure vendors to restructure to achieve scale and vertical integration. The value of VMware stock fell 10% after the announcement, valuing the deal at around $63–64bn rather than the $67bn originally reported.
qas: answers: text: private cloud computing
question: What type of computing is the combined effort of EMC and Dell slated to address?

answers: text: FBR Capital Markets
question: What organization commented on the deal between EMC and Dell?

answers: text: 10%
question: How much did VMware stock fall after the merger announcement?

answers: text: $67bn
question: What was the original valuation of the merger?

context: After several weeks of rumors, which started around January 11, 2013, Dell announced on February 5, 2013 that it had struck a $24.4 billion leveraged buyout deal, that would have delisted its shares from the NASDAQ and Hong Kong Stock Exchange and taken it private. Reuters reported that Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners, aided by a $2 billion loan from Microsoft, would acquire the public shares at $13.65 apiece. The $24.4 billion buyout was projected to be the largest leveraged buyout backed by private equity since the 2007 financial crisis. It is also the largest technology buyout ever, surpassing the 2006 buyout of Freescale Semiconductor for $17.5 billion.
qas: answers: text: $24.4 billion
question: What was the value of Dell's buyout deal?

answers: text: 2013
question: What year did Dell announce its buyout deal?

answers: text: $2 billion
question: What was the value of the loan that Dell received from Microsoft?

answers: text: $17.5 billion
question: What was the value of the second largest technology buyout?

context: In 2000, Dell announced that it would lease 80,000 square feet (7,400 m2) of space in the Las Cimas office complex in unincorporated Travis County, Texas, between Austin and West Lake Hills, to house the company's executive offices and corporate headquarters. 100 senior executives were scheduled to work in the building by the end of 2000. In January 2001, the company leased the space in Las Cimas 2, located along Loop 360. Las Cimas 2 housed Dell's executives, the investment operations, and some corporate functions. Dell also had an option for 138,000 square feet (12,800 m2) of space in Las Cimas 3. After a slowdown in business required reducing employees and production capacity, Dell decided to sublease its offices in two buildings in the Las Cimas office complex. In 2002 Dell announced that it planned to sublease its space to another tenant; the company planned to move its headquarters back to Round Rock once a tenant was secured. By 2003, Dell moved its headquarters back to Round Rock. It leased all of Las Cimas I and II, with a total of 312,000 square feet (29,000 m2), for about a seven-year period after 2003. By that year roughly 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2) of that space was absorbed by new subtenants.
qas: answers: text: 80,000 square feet
question: How much space did Dell lease in Texas?

answers: text: 100
question: How many senior executives were slated to work in the building Dell leased?

answers: text: 2002
question: What year did Dell announce its plans to sublease its building?

answers: text: Round Rock
question: Where did Dell move its headquarters back to in 2003?

answers: text: 312,000 square feet
question: What was the total amount of space that Dell leased in Las Cimas 1 and 2?

context: 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 floor of the Arboretum and that the company's official headquarters address would continue to be the Arboretum. The top floor continued to hold Dell's board room, demonstration center, and visitor meeting room. Less than one month prior to August 29, 1994, Dell moved 1,100 customer support and telephone sales employees to Round Rock. Dell's lease in the Arboretum had been scheduled to expire in 1994.
qas: answers: text: Austin
question: What Texas city was Dell's headquarters previously in?

answers: text: 1,200
question: How many employees worked at Dell's Texas headquarters?

answers: text: 1994
question: What year did Dell announce that it was moving most of its employees out of Texas?

answers: text: top floor
question: Where was the board room located at Dells Arboretum building?

answers: text: 1,100
question: How many customer support employees did Dell move to Round Rock in 1994?

context: Dell assembled computers for the EMEA market at the Limerick facility in the Republic of Ireland, and once employed about 4,500 people in that country. Dell began manufacturing in Limerick in 1991 and went on to become Ireland's largest exporter of goods and its second-largest company and foreign investor. On January 8, 2009, Dell announced that it would move all Dell manufacturing in Limerick to Dell's new plant in the Polish city of Łódź by January 2010. European Union officials said they would investigate a €52.7million aid package the Polish government used to attract Dell away from Ireland. European Manufacturing Facility 1 (EMF1, opened in 1990) and EMF3 form part of the Raheen Industrial Estate near Limerick. EMF2 (previously a Wang facility, later occupied by Flextronics, situated in Castletroy) closed in 2002,[citation needed] and Dell Inc. has consolidated production into EMF3 (EMF1 now[when?] contains only offices). Subsidies from the Polish government did keep Dell for a long time. After ending assembly in the Limerick plant the Cherrywood Technology Campus in Dublin was the largest Dell office in the republic with over 1200 people in sales (mainly UK & Ireland), support (enterprise support for EMEA) and research and development for cloud computing, but no more manufacturing except Dell's Alienware subsidiary, which manufactures PCs in an Athlone, Ireland plant. Whether this facility will remain in Ireland is not certain. Construction of EMF4 in Łódź, Poland has started[update]: Dell started production there in autumn 2007.
qas: answers: text: EMEA
question: For what market did Dell make computers for in Ireland?

answers: text: 4,500
question: How many Irish employees did Dell hire?

answers: text: €52.7million
question: What was the value of the aid package given to Dell that the European Union investigated?

answers: text: 2009
question: What year did Dell announce it was relocating its Irish facility?

answers: text: 2007
question: What year did Dell begin production in the Lodz, Poland facility?

context: In addition, the company provides protection services, advisory services, multivendor hardware support, "how-to" support for software applications, collaborative support with many third-party vendors, and online parts and labor dispatching for customers who diagnose and troubleshoot their hardware. Dell also provides Dell ProSupport customers access to a crisis-center to handle major outages, or problems caused by natural disasters. Dell also provide on-line support by using the computer's service-tag that provides full list of the hardware elements installed originally, purchase date and provides the latest upgrades for the original hardware drivers.
qas: answers: text: multivendor
question: What kind of hardware support does Dell provide?

answers: text: ProSupport
question: What kind of customers does Dell provide support to for major outages?

answers: text: on-line support
question: What kind of support does Dell provide using a computer's service-tag?

context: Dell service and support brands include the Dell Solution Station (extended domestic support services, previously "Dell on Call"), Dell Support Center (extended support services abroad), Dell Business Support (a commercial service-contract that provides an industry-certified technician with a lower call-volume than in normal queues), Dell Everdream Desktop Management ("Software as a Service" remote-desktop management, originally a SaaS company founded by Elon Musk's cousin, Lyndon Rive, which Dell bought in 2007), 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).
qas: answers: text: Dell on Call
question: What is the alternate name for the Dell Solution Station?

answers: text: Dell Business Support
question: What Dell service offers certified technicians to tackle commercial technical support?

answers: text: Dell Everdream Desktop Management
question: What Dell service offers remote desktop management?

answers: text: Your Tech Team
question: What is the name of the Dell service that gives home-users a support queue?

context: In late 2006[update], Dell lost its lead in the PC-business to Hewlett-Packard. Both Gartner and IDC estimated that in the third quarter of 2006, HP shipped more units worldwide than Dell did. Dell's 3.6% growth paled in comparison to HP's 15% growth during the same period. The problem got worse in the fourth quarter, when Gartner estimated that Dell PC shipments declined 8.9% (versus HP's 23.9% growth). As a result, at the end of 2006 Dell's overall PC market-share stood at 13.9% (versus HP's 17.4%).
qas: answers: text: 2006
question: What year did Dell lose its tech lead to Hewlett-Packard?

answers: text: 15%
question: What was HP's growth during the third quarter of 2006?

answers: text: 8.9%
question: What was the rate of decline that Dell experienced in PC shipments?

answers: text: 13.9%
question: What was Dell's market share at the end of 2006?

context: 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 these 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 the toxics’ and claiming that Dell’s aspiration to be ‘the greenest technology company on the planet’ was ‘hypocritical’. Dell has launched its first products completely free of PVC and BFRs with the G-Series monitors (G2210 and G2410) in 2009.
qas: answers: text: polyvinyl chloride
question: What toxic chemical did Dell set to eliminate from its products?

answers: text: 2011
question: By what year does Dell plan to remove chemicals from its computers?

answers: text: Greenpeace
question: What activists protested at Dell's offices in response to the usage of toxic chemicals?

answers: text: 2009
question: What year did Dell launch its first products that were free of toxic chemicals?

context: 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 customer service to $150 million. Despite significant investment in this space, Dell continues to face public scrutiny with even the company's own website littered with complaints regarding the issue escalation process.[original research?]
qas: answers: text: 45%
question: What percentage of Dell support calls were transferred?

answers: text: $100 million
question: How much did Dell originally spend to fix their customer service?

answers: text: $150 million
question: What amount did Dell increase its customer service budget to?

context: The company aims to reduce its external environmental impact through energy-efficient evolution of products, and also reduce its direct operational impact through energy-efficiency programs. Internal energy-efficiency programs reportedly save the company more than $3 million annually in energy-cost savings. The largest component of the company's internal energy-efficiency savings comes through PC power management: the company expects to save $1.8 million in energy costs through using specialized energy-management software on a network of 50,000 PCs.
qas: answers: text: external environmental impact
question: What does Dell aim to reduce by creating energy efficient products?

answers: text: $3 million
question: How much does energy efficiency save Dell per year?

answers: text: PC power management
question: What is the largest contributor to Dell's energy efficiency savings?

answers: text: 50,000
question: How many PCs does Dell employ energy management software on?