The dell optiplex is a computer. It's not the an computer, but it is one of the computers of all time. You've probably used dozens of them. In schools, in libraries, at work in an office or anywhere else that does a business with a computer. You have never bought one new. Nobody has, actually. You can get one new, but you haven't, nobody has, nobody will. Why would you, it's something you get used, from a reseller, from the refurb section of an ewaste dropoff, from a thrift store, on the local classifieds at an office liquidation, for $100. You're a person, you don't go out and buy this computer, people don't buy them. To a person, this is a $100 box that watches emails and writes youtube videos and aends online poker. It has no brand, no name, no distringuishing featues. It's "a computer", until it breaks. You didn't buy a dell optiplex, you bought "just a computer".
These computers do come from somewhere though. They start service somehow. Begin a tour of duty. Initiate their rotation and carry out a functional lifespan before they cost $100. But they aren't bought. Nobody has ever bought one. These computers are requisitioned for the needs of an organization. They are ordered, in a lot, by a purchaser, for the use thereof by those under the employ of a firm. Nobody bought them. Somewhere, a budget was allocated, and through a technology logistics acquisitions supply chain, a pallet of dell optiplexes were acquired, installed, and activated. A transaction from one corporate entity to another was conducted. And products were delivered. And services were rendered. But nobody bought one. Nobody pays real money for a new one. Credit transfers somewhere in the bowels of an electronic commerce system. Nobody paid for it. No cheque was written, no card swiped, no cash exchanged. A dell optiplex in an office talked to a server which talked to another server which talked to another dell optiplex which talked to a corporate issued warehouse phone. And 50 dell optiplexes appeared in the loading bay of West Franklin-Columbusville's high school or the offices of Steve "The Hammer" MacGoldberg-Johnson Jr and Associates or American Invetment Supplies Office Outfitters Ltd.
They are available in retail format, technically. They have an MSRP. There are options. But you don't buy them. Nobody buys them. No one has ever bought one. Not from the manufacturer. It's never once been a thing a person has bought. Not new, anyway. A dell optiplex is $100.
This is espcially eerie because one of my jobs out of high school was a locally owned computer repair shop that bought optiplexes - in bulk - from schools and defunct businesses to format, setup, and resell.
This is true in all walks of life. I've never seen a "brand new" optiplex. Nobody has. Nobody ever will. They arrive, unboxed, unbothered, ready to compute.
Forevermore.
