Oh before, most definitely. If I gave anyone the impression that I originated the concept that "Parts is Parts" I sincerely apologize. You own the credit for those thoughts, not me. I'm not stealing credit for that. However, I did you a favor. Isn't that worth a little gratitude? I helped you condense your thoughts into 3 little words. I saved you all the time and effort you put into your posts when all you were ever really saying was "Parts is Parts". Quality, Reliability, On time delivery, Chipsets, Customer support, Technical support, Drivers, Bios, Compilers, Reference boards, Reference designs, Documentation, Roadmaps, Believability and most importantly, honesty and integrity are never factors OEMs consider when choosing a supplier. That's why you never mentioned those factors in all your posts. They don't matter and never did cause "Parts is Parts".

Again, if you understood the business you'd realize that design decisions are made well before products hit the market. In retrospect, Dell made the wrong decision but contrary to your view, parts are not parts, and Dell had already charted their course for that product cycle. You think they can just open a bag of AMD instead of Intel chicken nuggets and dump them into the deep fryer. It doesn't work that way.