Perhaps Dell will get the clue one day...
Dells profits are down because they're totally stupid. Here's my example...
3 Months ago I ordered a Dell Precision Laptop. Total Cost £3,800. Not your average laptop, and clearly very profitable for Dell - given the warranties etc added to it that I paid for.
My laptop was faulty, and had a Hard Disc fault. It also appeared to have other issues with stability - from factory before I'd installed things. Dell said it was just the Disc. Not great, but one of those things. No problem so far. They sent someone out who should install the new disc and then restore the laptop to the factory shipped condition for me (it was specifically noted for them to do it and I had the top support level which allows this). My laptop was given back with half my on-board equipment not working (no working GPS, Bluetooth, wrong video driver etc), and some drivers installed for equipment I didn't have.
I complained - what I was supposed to get was my original laptop shipped state back (inc various applications such as "Dell controlpoint") which I needed for features like the built in 3G card to work. No worries, they said. Another engineer, replaced a now perfectly fine hard disc again anyway, and my motherboard (no idea why).
Guess what, I had a different random collection of devices not working and applications that it ships with missing.
More complaints and Dell eventually decided the easiest thing to do is just ship me my laptop again from scratch, so I def have a factory shipped, new laptop.
Roll forward 3 months.
Despite numerous promises, 12 different people at Dell being involved (each saying they were taking personal ownership of the issue) and 3 laptops supposedly "sent for build" my "order" kept getting stuck, and they haven't yet shipped me a laptop.
This week I finally had enough and asked them to sort it and fast, or I'd take further action as I had, in writing my original conditions upon buying this laptop from them, and they'd clearly breached that understanding. Dell have decided it would be quicker to refund nearly £4,000 to me than simply ship me a working laptop. This despite that I've already warned them this means I'll blacklist them and I'll never spend another penny with them either directly or via recommendation etc.
So 3 months in Dell will get back a faulty laptop, refund me my money and lose all future sales.
I guess that's why the muppets are losing sales and profit. Kudos to HP, my replacement from them has turned up, works fine, everything installed and operating as it should, and unlike Dell they have proper recovery media so everything actually recovers and can be reinstalled properly if you ever need to.
Paris, cause she knows to give good service and get the job done rather than refund.