The moment of truth came in early 2007. After bleeding market share for two years, and losing more than a third of its shareholder value, Dell Inc. ( DELL ) forced out CEO Kevin Rollins and brought back the man who, two decades earlier, had founded the company. Changes followed quickly. In May, Dell announced that it would begin selling PCs at Wal-Mart ( WMT ), and before long other retailers were carrying the brand. Over the next three years, plants were closed in Texas, North Carolina, and Ireland, and production was outsourced to Asia. The two things that once defined Michael Dell's company -- a direct-to-customer sales model, and a build-to-order supply chain -- didn't survive his return.