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Before then – in the 90s both Intel and Microsoft used a lot of backroom deals to keep big vendors exclusive. If memory serves it took the Opteron’s crushing performance advantage before we started seeing that break for Intel servers; Linux users for years were stuck paying for OEM Windows installs which were never used.

Yes, but I've been around the industry a while. I specifically remember this happening during the late 90s and just in to the 2000s.

It was occurring at a time when AMD was fairly firmly beating Intel on a straight $/performance basis (~K6 era). If Dell had started shipping AMD based systems back then it could have been a big game changer.

The general narrative around the tech press at the time was that Intel knew this and were desperate to keep Dell as Intel exclusive.

These are probably to prevent action from the FTC.

I think they are talking about when Dell made serious profits in PCs.