That said, it only applies to their servers - the disk arrays and networking equipment is all garbage. I hope this change won't result in making the one thing that works worse.
But the current place is all HP. They've been running on HP since the 80's, the core of the business still runs on an Itanium. I was literally laughed at for suggesting Dell servers or Lenovo laptops. The IT VP seems to think Dell is a joke and Lenovo is 'low quality, Chinese'.
The only advantage of going with HP in my mind, is the fact that there are two fortune 500 companies in town who run all HP. That results in them having techs in the area all the time and a decent inventory of warranty parts nearby.
I hate Dell desktops, although I do like their monitors. Dell desktops tend to over-optimize on power supplies and other components, such that you can never really upgrade them later.
+1 for supermicro and they're fun to build as well as bomb proof
Dell's done some dumb stuff, and the newer gen models are a nightmare to figure out (limiting number of disks for no reason, requiring 2.5" on some models but not others). Plus they gouge you to get a functional KVM ($300+?) But they've been far more reliable than Supermicro, in my limited experience.
> Intel developer machines
Several of their new technology server motherboards were actually OEMed by Supermicro -- stuff like the boards for testing TXT, etc. Intel is actually getting out of the motherboard industry entirely. I think Supermicro was mainly involved in the server boards, not their desktop boards -- bigger manufacturers usually used intel reference designs but still made their own board, so I think it was a low volume business.