They are supposed to take "value" into consideration, but after working for a big company for 20+ years, and selling/marketing b2b pretty much that whole time, I can attest that it is more often "cost" than "value".
I have had my Dimension 2 years - in that period of time I have had to get the wireless card (and hence the whole motherboard as it is integrated) replaced once, the keyboard twice (no spillage, just failed parts), the bezel around the screen replaced once (all done through Dell's contract field service with a 2-day turn-around), and have had to send it into our corporate IT department three times as the password cache had become corrupted and locked me out (and their backdoor passwords didn't work either). Each of the field repairs took three days (1 day for the call, 1 day to schedule, and one day to perform the repair), and each time I sent it in to my IT department I was without a PC for the better part of the week, and paid overnight insured shipping each way ($100 per trip). So the out of pocket shipping/insurance costs were $600, and my loss of use was 24 days.
My experience mirrors the other folks who work remote, so how much is Dell saving us in the long run? They may talk a good game about up-front costs being reduced due to leasing, great local support, end-of-life options, etc. but in the end it is costing real $$.
