Dell vs. Apple: 10 Years Later
It was 10 years ago that Michael Dell, speaking before several thousand technology executives at ITxpo97 in Orlando, answered a question about what he would do if he were CEO of Apple with a remark he probably instantly regretted:
“What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”
As others have noted, Apple’s (AAPL) market capitalization today is more than double that of Dell (DELL):
Apple: $140.4 billion
Dell: $62.27 billion
0
Support the Blog — Buy This Book!
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Put this ad on your blog!
Syndicate
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Junk Email Filter
Dell has to beat Apple at their own game by doing the following:
1) Create a whole new OS from scratch.
2) Manufacture the proprietory hardware.
3) Brand it.
#31, Father Dave, Dell has to beat Apple at their own game
Why bother? They make some fine hardware that runs everything but OSX. A rather successful business model considering they have very few brick & mortar stores.
For 2006 —
Dell revenue – $56B
Apple revenue – $7.1B
I couldn’t find Apple ATI for 2006 in any meaningful context, so I can’t run a comparison. Like I said earlier, their stock was a good buy.
In best Homer Simpson voice: John Elway? I wanna be Michael Dell 🙂
The biggest problem that Apple is going to face is that they have locked down their OSes. While it helps halt the advance of malware it also grinds external software development to a halt. Look at application availiblity for Mac OSX vs Windows.
17,
I’m an IT guy too, and I support both Mac’s and Windows, and let me tell you, in the ENTERPRISE environment, MS has the far better platform. Being able to rdeploy X number of machines of various types and capacities across a network unattended is a dream come true. For home users, sure, Mac is great since the users can’t be tempted by the hundreds of offers for free software that can carry a nasty payload. As for the reliability of the hardware, my experience with the hundreds of Macs I support compared to the thousands of PC’s I support, I find my frequency in visiting the Macs are far higher proportionate to the PC;s. Sadly, even the users hate the Macs due to their poor reliability.
Anyhoo, OS’s for the home are just a tool and you choose the one your like better. Since God is dead, you have to worship something… and for some people OS’s and corporation are their choice. For the enterprise, you just cannot compare a mac to a PC. I mean, you can’t even get a docking station for a mac… Hell, you can’t even close the LID without it going to sleep…
30 – Jim R-
Are you like 5 years old? Bla Bla? That’s the best you can come up with?
Ha! Pathetic.
The thing that kept consumers loyal to Dell in the late ’90s and very early ’00s was good tech support. When they outsourced it to Bangalore, the contract was broken. Consumers figured out quickly that Dell didn’t care about them. So they didn’t care about Dell.
The other woes that have befallen Dell all grow from that decision.
it’s no wonder Apple does so much better than Dell.
Dell is a computer manufacturer. A large one, but still, all they do is rather uninspierd beige and black boxes that can calculate.
Apple is a lifestyle company.
When you show with a new Dell, your friends will ask “why didn’t you go for this and that spec”, when you show up with any music player but an iPod, your friends will either not mention it at all or ask you “Why didn’t you get a touch?”.
In short: the brand is as strong as Coke, Nike or any fashion brand.
That makes it much simpler to sell as it doesn’t appeal on a technical level where you would be compared to other, similar products, but on a style and image level, where brand perception is much more important.
Congratulations for that Apple.
But with the iPhone they’re trying hard to find out how far they can push their customers.
pj
#37, pj, I guess we’ll agree to disagree. I don’t care one mil what any friends think when I buy a computer to crunch astrophotos or drive a robot telescope. Nor do I care what music player would impress anyone (although I do own a Nano for convenience). That’s just low level passé entertainment.
Guess I’m just the functional type – Mr. Bang For Buck. Socks are socks. Unfortunately, only MS runs the giant math and photo apps I need for clients that could care less what’s “under the hood.” All they (and I) want are results.
I don’t think scientists really give a care about a “fashion statement.” (But I wish I had a moiré pocket protector 🙂 )
#34 – Well, I’m not sure why you’re unable to deploy X number of Macs in an enterprise environment. I’ve got it scripted, and, depending on the network, I can deploy Macs at will. I’ll be happy to discuss it with you, if you’d like (I’m all for sharing).
Anyway, my experience in an heterogeneous enterprise environment has been quite the opposite of yours. Not sure why that is, but hey… that’s how it goes.
#38 – BubbaRay,
If you like bang for the buck, why buy Dell? Why not go with Averatec. That’s bang for the buck that’s really hard to beat. And, they have quite good tech support too. My wife is on her second. When I replace my mac, I’ll probably stay with mac. I just really like the bash shell, as well as a lot of its other features.
BTW, one of the cool things about the averatec line is that they realize that when carrying your nice little light laptop, you probably don’t want a huge-ass dell power cord to go with it. My wife’s is smaller than the mac cord and has the added advantage of only requiring a two prong outlet, a win on travel.
#39,
Wow, that sounds like a huge PITA. All I do with my windows clients is join the domain and I am pretty much done. When I switch to thin clients plus virtualised clients next year, it will be just a matter of plugging them in… No matter where they are on the internet, forget the lan…
39,
Why? Well, we have to have a mix of OS9 and OSX. Makes it tricky. We’re looking at phasing out the Macs since they’ve lost their need. If you are deploying the OS across OSX machines, that’s handy, but I’m also aware of how to… OS9 is the pain in the ass. Even getting network printer to work in that OS can be a pain.
Anyhoo, that’s the great thing about anecdotal evidence. It don’t mean much in the end.
#35, Awake, just as I thought. You are all talk and can’t back it up. Coward.
#40, Scott, even scientists have heard of Dell and seem to be comfortable with the name. Go figure. For this app, giant tower with lots o’ slots and huge P/S is req’d. Heck, even I can take a Dell apart, they’re built well and easy to work on.
I looked at Averatec’s site, they seem to have nice products, especially the “all in one” pc which looks pretty cool. Thanks.
#44 – BubbaRay,
Oh a tower. I forgot some people still by computers in non-laptop form.
#38, bubba, I don’t think we do disagree at all.
I was merely describing what I think can be observed in the market. Dell is generally perceived as “just another PC maker” while Apple is fashion. That makes Apple a whole lot more valuable.
pj
#42 Named OS 9… this is 1998 calling, we want our OS back.
How can you make any judgments when your using a OS that has been dead for almost seven years. How are your OS 2 machines doing. Any tips on setting up Win 95.
#47,
You obviously have never worked in IT. I still have old windows NT computers chugging along…
47,
48 called you on that. As I said in my previous posts, my support of thousands of machines require legacy… Hell, we still have Word 97 with Adobe Acrobat 4.0 (did you know it existed at that version?) in production for a MAJOR application… and when I say MAJOR I’m talking core operations. But, go ahead and launch Garage Band and add a few instruments… I’ll continue to support billions in operations, costs and revenues… on OS9, XP, UNIX and the rest that is needed…
#46, pj, Apple is fashion. That makes Apple a whole lot more valuable.
Well, OK, if you say so. I guess I’m just a blue jeans and T-shirt kind o’ guy. Even astronomers and pilots have to wear something besides a suit and tie sometimes.
For 2006 –
Dell revenue – $56B
Apple revenue – $7.1B
#45, M. Scott Oh a tower. I forgot some people still by computers in non-laptop form.
The laptops are used for guiding and photography via wi-fi. The tower runs the show and crunches the numbers. That Averatech is a great looking laptop. Why don’t you send me one for evaluation? 🙂
#49,
It it ain’t broke, break it! Thats what I always say. Those old windows nt computers are half the reason I want to switch to a virtualized environment, those computers are almost antiques. I can’t wait until the VMWare SMB software arrives. Supposedly, I’ll be able to just image the old computers hard drive, drop it on the server.
Man, I am glad I stayed away from Macs. It doesn’t look like there will be any way to virtualize those anytime soon.
Also, OS/2 ran our voice mail until I upgraded it to an Asterisk system last year. Man that was a slick upgrade, it is so rare that a DIY open source solution works better (and costs 10s of k less) than a commercial solution. Man the nortel guy was all irritated when I had him program the Key system to just ring each phone as its own line. No more $100 an hourse service charges for that company;)
Biggest example of over priced stock is Google. At least Apple does more than have a seach engine on the web.
HP today announced its expanded portfolio of HP printers, imaging and printing devices, solutions and services to help enterprise customers boost productivity, security and environmental sustainability.