OptiPlex

Launched in 1993 as Dell's business line, kept separate from the consumer names (Dimension, later Inspiron and XPS), the Latitude laptops and the Precision workstations. The whole point was predictability: one image should deploy across the entire fleet, and a model should be re-orderable a year later with nothing quietly swapped inside.

The form factors shrank over the years into tiny "micro" boxes that hide behind the monitor, but the role is the same three decades on — the dull, dependable box under the desk at agencies and large firms. That it is rarely mentioned is, in this context, a compliment.