To Dell or not to Dell

Dell makes a good machine.  Both desktop workstations and servers have been stable and reliable.  With the economy in its present state we are finding our choice provider of hardware somewhat lacking.  They are reducing parts inventory and drawing out their lead times.  They have reduced personnel and thus made their response time slower... even for new purchases.  We have seen similar trends with other vendors as well.  In order to keep lead times shorter and quality of machines higher, we have taken to building more custom workstations and servers recently.  Custom pricing is slightly higher than Dell (which is still the best pre-built machine for the money), but we have found the components and specifications are significantly better than from the large