Archive for September, 2009

Dell Deal of the Day: 15.6″ Notebook for only $399

Dell Vostro A860 15.6″ Laptop, 2GB RAM, Core 2 Duo T5870, 250GB HDD, Vista Home Basic $399.00 plus shipping at Dell Small Business.

Dell Small Business has the Dell Vostro A860 15.6″ Laptop, 2GB RAM, Core 2 Duo T5870, 250GB HDD, Vista Home Basic for just $399 plus $25 shipping. We like that this laptop comes with a Core 2 Duo processor and a 250GB HDD — two things you generally don’t see in a $400 laptop.

To shop, click HERE

Dell Closes Fraud Case with NY State

Dell and Dell Financial Services ended its legal battle with the State of New York and its politically motivated Attorney General Andrew Cuomo yesterday by paying $4 million. Dell and its subsidiary were accused of “fraud, false advertising, and deceptive business practices, including offering misleading financing, and failing to honor rebates, warranties, and service contracts”.

The jury portion of the suit was settled last May when the company was found guilty and the announced cash settlement “would be used to compensate customers who were affected by Dell’s practices”.

The reality of the case is that the Attorney General’s office stated that promotional financing rates were used to advertise and drive demand for Dell’s products, while very few of the customers ever received the promotional rate. The low dollar value of the award to Dell customers shows that the actions by Dell were either not very agregious or Mr. Cuomo had gotten all the political capital out of winning a judgement against a large corporation and the need to actually provide relief to the voting public was not beneficial to his campaigning for the Governor of NY.

Today’s Dell Deals of the Day: 9/14/2009

2 Great desktop deals with Intel’s latest Core processors!

• Dell Studio XPS Desktop with Core i7 and 19″ Widescreen Monitor for $999 plus free shipping (normally $1458).
• Dell Studio XPS 8000 Core i5 Desktop with 22″ LCD for $799.00 plus free shipping (normally $1079).

Dell accused in Louisana Crime Camera Lawsuit

Here’s an interesting tidbit I found on the wire.

New Orleans’ Times-Picayune reports that Dell is a defendant in a civil suit filed in Orleans Parish Civil District Court and is accused of being a co-conspirator with members of the New Orleans city government to block a smaller company from renewing their contract as the city’s vendor for crime cameras. Dell stands to get a black eye from this case due to “… internal Dell documents that indicate top executives wanted in on the municipal crime-camera market, and considered it a multibillion-dollar-a-year boon.”

We’ll keep an eye on this and be sure to share the juicy bits as the case unfolds.

Dell Closes Another US Customer Call Center

Dell, which tried to respond to criticisms in the early 2000′s of having too many offshore call centers, opened a number of US-based call centers in unlikely locales. The company proceeded to close (Roseburg, OR) or scale back (Oklahoma City, OK) many of these locales and just announced that it will be shuttering another location, this time in Twin Falls, Idaho.

500 employees are reported to be working at the location. Local media outlet KIVI-TV reports that  3/4 of these will be let go in stages and the remaining will still work for Dell in a remote / home-based worker program.

Speculation still continues about Dell’s manufacturing and logistics facility in Winston-Salem, NC. Opened in 2005, the new facility was steeped in controversy due to the generous tax credits the company received for bringing their facility to the state. The facility manufactures Desktops and workstations, however, with the shift towards mobile devices, one could argue that its days are also numbered.

Today’s Dell Deal (9/10/09): 20″ LCD for only $109

And free shipping too!

Click here for the 20″ Dell S2009W Widescreen LCD Monitor $109 plus free shipping (normally $150).