A hundred miles from the coprporate HQ in Austin, with orders filled from the warehouse there, my last three Dells have all arrived before or on the designated shipping date, the last one actually before the e-mail advising me of the shipping date.

All in all, I can't fault Dell over almost 15 years of buying from them, one of the first times from the old, now gone and lamented, Austin "retail" store where the "reconditioned" machines and surplus peripherals were discounted. I bought a system, carried it home, discovered a missing component, called and had it arrive the next AM.

I wish I could be as comfortable with the shipping practices and "dates" of some others, including the receipt Wednesday of a small mail order from March 13, delay unacknowledged during the 2 1/2 month lapse (but on one of the few occasions when I had to use a "paper" check, at least the check wasn't presented until the order shipped.

Rumor has it that on a couple of occasions, "new" Dell models have been delayed in shipping after a bug was discovered and all similar machines in the logistics trail underwent a bench test or "fix". That's a simple enough answer to make sense, but not as simple as a more likely cause, a late arrival of a VLCC at Long Beach or cargo container delayed/temporarilty lost in rail or truck transit.