KM714 Logitech Unifying vs Dell Universal Pairing

Anyone?  Someone from Dell know what the deal is about the blue link symbol on the new KM714's and why they no longer work with the orange Logitech Unifying equipment?

Sadly, I too have been misled by Dell on my latest KM714 keyboard purchase.  

No where does the Amazon ad suggest that this KM714 is not compatible with my other older Dell KM714 keyboard.  I bought this one to serve as a work keyboard to allow me to carry my XPS 18 Windows tablet back and forth to work without having to ;ug the keyboard and mouse.  It is frustrating that Dell changed the transceiver (without any hint of a model number change) such that the internal Logitec Unifying receiver that is built into my XPS 18 will not connect with my new keyboard and mouse.  Yes - I know I can plug in yet another dongle and get it to work - but THAT is exactly what peeves me the most about this.  Dell seems totally out-of-touch when they arbitrarilly change an existing product and make it incompatible with the prior hardware that carries the identical model number!

I will live with it I guess since it would be costly and a hassle to return at this point.  Already discarded the box it came in.  But it will forever be a reminder to not trust Dell with my good faith in the future.

Michael Dell knew better than to do these things.  Dell is not the company it once was.

I believe what's happening is Dell is moving away from their proprietary Dell Universal Pairing software to Logitech Unifying software. At least I hope so, because you can't purchase replacement usb receivers that work with Dell Universal Pairing. I've purchased at least 10 of these keyboard/mouse bundles and 8 out of the 10 I received only have Dell Universal Pairing software. I've purchased most of them from Dell on Amazon and the rest on the Dell website. Each time I purchased, I made sure the specs said it would come with Logitech Unifying instead of Dell Universal Pairing software, but as I mentioned earlier, most of them came with the Dell Universal Pairing software.

I'm assuming Dell is probably just trying to get rid of their old stock, so most of what you'll get is going to have Dell Universal Pairing software until they run out of them because I doubt they're just going to throw them all away. This is extremely misleading due to the fact that the two types of software are completely different and NOT compatible. And why Dell would start making their keyboard/mouse combo use one type of software, then after a while make a new type of wireless pairing software for them that isn't backwards compatible is completely beyond me. It's pretty obviously to me that they don't care about their customers, otherwise 1) they would've made sure they were advertising the correct pairing software in the specs where they're selling their hardware, 2) they would've made the two types of software compatible with each other, 3) they would've put more information about this issue online because there's nothing from Dell online about how they're different, how they're not compatible, and that you may or may not get a keyboard/mouse combo that has the advertised Logitech Unifying software, and 4) mentioned the fact that replacement receivers compatible with Dell Universal Pairing software are not available.

It goes without saying that this is really irritating and as an IT professional, this makes me a lot less likely to purchase and/or recommend Dell products to anyone. It's unfortunate too, because in my opinion, the KM714 keyboard/mouse combo is one of the best options out there for office use - it's solid, quiet, looks nice, and you only need the one receiver for both keyboard and mouse. But the fact that you can't get replacement usb receivers (these things are about the size of a dime, so they get lost easily) or interchange hardware that utilizes the two types of software would be why I highly recommend looking elsewhere for wireless hardware - at least until Dell gets their head out of you know where and works out this issue.

I just purchased 3 more from Dell (product info page found here:

. Same issue as before... the listing advertises that the KM714 bundle will come with Logitech Unifying software, but each one I received used Dell Universal Pairing software (more info on Dell Universal Pairing can be found here:

. If you could just get replacement usb receivers, this wouldn't be an issue. But as it stands now, if you lose the receiver, you might as well lose the keyboard and mouse too because they're useless without the receiver.