According to this story from the New York Times, Dell has known for years that it sold millions of computers with faulty capacitors in the motherboard. Internal emails suggest a cover up and urge employees to “emphasize uncertainty” to customers. A study from Dell suggests a 97% fail rate for computers with these capacitors.

That’s a lot of failing computers. And all of those businesses who purchased Dell computers with faulty capacitors are going to need someone to come in and save them. For partners of vendors like HP, this is a great time to start pushing your products. While the bad capacitor influx a few years ago affected all vendors, it appears that it has affected Dell far worse than its rivals. Hit hardest were Dell’s OptiPlex desktop computers, sold to business and government customers. And Dell did not issue a recall of any sort to alert customers that something may be wrong with their computers.

These aren’t customers who need their computers to upload pictures or other leisurely activities. With a business and government business at hand, it’s pretty important that the computer works. Even worse, customers allege that their data was lost, which Dell denies.

So partners out there had better roll up their sleeves and get ready to push some non-Dell products. This is prime time for Dell’s competitors to make a push for new business. What’s most interesting to me is the last paragraph of this story:

“Dell salespeople were told to emphasize that the company’s direct model allowed it to identify and fix problems faster than competitors.”

So fast, huh?  This went down in 2005.  It’s 2010!  Five years!  Besides the fact that Dell just thumbed its nose at its partners and their ability to fix Dell computers, five years is not how long it should take to fix this.

It is a strategic move on Dell’s part. In the past, their service offerings have been basic, compared to larger competitors like IBM and HP. Acquiring Perot allows them to provide consulting and systems integration services at a higher level.

But at what cost? Dell has already been under fire as one of the biggest vendors to create channel conflict with its own partners since the creation of its partner program. And now that Dell is expanding its own services offering with this acquisition and gaining more than 1,000 new customers – mostly in vertical markets like healthcare and the government — it’s hard to imagine how this doesn’t create conflict with its already aggravated partners. 

“I don’t think that Dell is trying to be channel friendly,” said Peter Hirschfeld, CEO and president of Personal Computer Resources in Braintree, Mass., and former Dell partner. “They are on a strategic mission to compete at the highest level of services and with the acquisition of Perot Systems, they have arrived.” Hirschfeld also notes that Dell’s prior acquisitions of SilverBack and Everdream have provided Dell with the network management infrastructure services to compete with others.

Get more information on Dell’s acquisition of Perot Systems in this news article by Barb Darrow, Senior News Director for SearchITChannel.com.

I’d love to hear what networking solution providers have to say about this. Think Dell is trying to help partners or hurt them? Send me an email at ehom@techtarget.com.