romikgosai/squad_modified huggingface dataset:
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.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What type of Dell media has appeared on TV, on the internet, and in magazines?
A: advertisements', "
Q: One of Dell's marketing strategies is what kind of shipping?
A: free", '
Q: What year did Dell cut its prices to keep its market share?
A: 2006', "
Q: By how much did Dell cut it's margins when it cut its prices?
A: half", '
Q: Where does Dell take most of its purchases for its products?
A: Internet']
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.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What year did Dell make an agreement with Officeworks?
A: 2008', '
Q: What computer model did Dell ask Officeworks to carry?
A: Inspiron', '
Q: In which country did Dell partner with Harris Technology?
A: Australian', '
Q: What company did Dell team with in late 2008?
A: Dick Smith Electronics', "
Q: What year did Dell's Australian program end up shutting down?
A: 2010"]
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.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What department did Dell launch an internal investigation on?
A: accounting', "
Q: What was the minimum amount of earnings that would be restated by Dell's investigation?
A: $50 million", "
Q: What year did Dell's internal investigation begin?
A: 2006", '
Q: Who did Dell agree to not buy processors from?
A: AMD', '
Q: How much did Dell pay in fines to settle fraud charges against it?
A: $100 million']
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.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What decade did Dell begin to sell things other than PCs?
A: 1990s', '
Q: IBM, Hewlett Packard, and Compaq were the major providers of what?
A: servers', '
Q: What servers did Dell create that they tried to break into the market with?
A: PowerEdge', "
Q: What year did Dell's enterprise revenue make up a large chunk of its profit?
A: 1998", '
Q: Which company did Dell exceed as a server provider?
A: Compaq']
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.

Questions and answers:
["
Q: What market made up the majority of Dell's sales?
A: PC", '
Q: What advantage did Dell hold in the PC market?
A: price', '
Q: What operation did Hewlett Packard and Acer make more efficient to compete with Dell?
A: manufacturing', '
Q: Where did Dell miss out on sales due to relying on the internet?
A: big box stores', '
Q: What company stated that Dell was preventing itself from innovating?
A: CNET']
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.

Questions and answers:
["
Q: What decade did Dell's manufacturing process become less efficient?
A: 2000s", '
Q: What plant did Dell close in Texas?
A: Mort Topfer Manufacturing Center', '
Q: What state was the Dell plant that received $280 million but was later closed?
A: North Carolina', '
Q: What company bought the North Carolina plant from Dell?
A: Herbalife', '
Q: The plant in what US state still remains in operation?
A: Florida']
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.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What hedge fund group was pressuring EMC into restructuring?
A: Elliott Management', "
Q: How much has Dell's value increased since they went private?
A: doubled", '
Q: What news source published revenue estimations between Dell and EMC?
A: The Wall Street Journal', '
Q: What year did Dell go private?
A: 2013']
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]

Questions and answers:
['
Q: In what foreign country did Dell open plants in 1995?
A: Malaysia', '
Q: What percentage of Dell notebooks are assembled in their asian plants?
A: 95%', '
Q: How much did Dell spend to construct a new plant in India?
A: $60 million', "
Q: How many PCs was Dell's Indian plant slated to make in 2007?
A: 400,000"]
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]

Questions and answers:
['
Q: Who is the founder of Dell?
A: Michael Dell', '
Q: How many board members does Dell have?
A: nine', '
Q: How many committees are appointed by the board of directors at Dell?
A: five', '
Q: Which Dell committee handles accounting issues?
A: Audit Committee', '
Q: Which Dell committee keeps the company from violating antitrust laws?
A: Antitrust Compliance Committee']
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.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What decade did Dell sell electronics through big box stores?
A: 1990s', '
Q: what year did Dell stop selling products through physical retailers?
A: 1994', '
Q: What store did Dell sell electronics at in 2003?
A: Sears', '
Q: What year did Dell begin selling products at retailers again?
A: 2007', '
Q: Who is the largest electronics retailer in the US? 
A: Best Buy']
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.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What was Dell the first IT company to establish?
A: product-recycling goal', '
Q: What year did Dell enact its global consumer recycling program?
A: 2006', '
Q: How much electronics did Dell recycle by 2009?
A: 275 million pounds', '
Q: What year was 78 million pounds of Dell equipment recycled?
A: 2006', '
Q: What percentage of Dell electronics from the previous seven years were recycled?
A: 12.4%']
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).

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What decade did Dell switch to PSUs and boards that had differently wired connectors?
A: 1990s', '
Q: With what kind of parts were consumers able to upgrade their Dell systems with?
A: Dell-compatible parts', '
Q: What year did Dell revert its power connectors to industry standard ones?
A: 2003', '
Q: What part of their motherboards does Dell not reveal the specifications of?
A: pin-outs']
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.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: When did Michael Dell found his company?
A: 1984', '
Q: How much did Dell receive as capital from his family?
A: $1,000', '
Q: What school did Dell go to and later drop out of while he ran his business?
A: University of Texas at Austin', '
Q: What year did Dell design its own computer?
A: 1985', '
Q: How much did Dell profit in its first year?
A: $73 million']
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.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What did Dell enjoy from 1997 to 2004?
A: steady growth', '
Q: What company did Dell overtake as the largest PC manufacturer?
A: Compaq', '
Q: How much were Dell profiting in 2002?
A: $35 billion', '
Q: What company did Compaq merge with in 2002?
A: Hewlett Packard', '
Q: What company was the fastest growing in the early 2000s?
A: Dell']
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.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What did Dell rely on that gave it a reputation?
A: supply chain efficiencies', '
Q: What did Dell maintain lower spending on than its competitors?
A: R&D', "
Q: What was Dell's organizational structure considered?
A: horizontal", '
Q: Dell lagged behind Hewlett Packard and Oracle in delivering what kind of solutions?
A: IT solutions']
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.

Questions and answers:
["
Q: What was the name of Dell's change campaign?
A: Dell 2.0", '
Q: Who relinquished his position as CEO to take a seat on the board?
A: Michael Dell', '
Q: Michael Dell removed employee bonuses from what year with his new incentive?
A: 2006', '
Q: Who replaced Jim Schneider as Dell CFO?
A: Donald Carty']
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.

Questions and answers:
["
Q: How much of Dell's revenue was its PC division?
A: half", "
Q: Who was Dell's main business rival?
A: Hewlett Packard", '
Q: How much did Dell spend on acquiring different divisions?
A: $13 billion', "
Q: What happened to Dell's revenue and share price in the post-PC market?
A: declines"]
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.

Questions and answers:
["
Q: What city is Dell's New Hampshire facility in?
A: Nashua", "
Q: What city is Dell's Tennessee facility in?
A: Nashville", "
Q: What city is Dell's Minnesota facility in?
A: Eden Prairie", "
Q: What city is Dell's Florida facility in?
A: Miami"]