OEM or Original Equipment Manufacturer:
1) Original Maker: an OEM is a company that supplies equipment to other companies to resell or incorporate into another product using the reseller's brand name.
2) Reseller: an OEM can also be the company that acquires a product or component and reuses or incorporates it into a new product with its own brand name.
- Example: Dell (DELL)
- This is also known as a value-added reseller (VAR).
3) In software: the term is used to differentiate between software sold by itself on retail, and software that is bundled together with a hardware system (e.g., Windows Vista with Dell laptops).
- OEM software would be the bundled version, while
- non-OEM software would be the standalone retail version.