Facing increasing irrelevance amidst declining sales of OS-limited PCs and dramatic market share losses, Michael Dell today announced that he’s shutting down the company and giving the money back to the shareholders.
“All of this cost-cutting is meaningless in the end,” Dell said in the press release. “Sooner or later you hit bottom; you just run out of places to cut. What are we supposed to do, sell 1,000 computers at a 1-cent margin? That’s a measly $10 net profit. Forget it. It’s no longer worth the effort.”
At a press conference in front of his just-emptied Austin PC assembly plant, Dell appeared resigned, asking, “Seriously, why buy an OS-limited Dell, when you can get an OS-unlimited Mac from Apple? HP, Toshiba, Sony, Lenovo, I could’ve dealt with, but Apple… I can’t compete with that. Slapping colored paint on laptop cases to try to generate some consumer sales from the clueless just wasn’t working. “
According to industry sources, Michael Dell personally approached Apple CEO Steve Jobs in late 2007 with an offer to license Mac OS X to replace the poorly-received Windows Vista. Sources claim that Jobs simply told Dell, “Go pound sand, Bozo.”
Dell declined to comment about reports of his brief meeting with Jobs. At press time, Apple had not responded to a request for comment.
When asked what he plans to do next, Dell said, “I plan to spend more time with my family, maybe do some golden parachuting, and, yes, get a Mac.”
Source: Dell Inc.
MacDailyNews Take: Even if we never appreciated his ugly hardware with its bolted on third-party, upside-down and backwards, poorly-faked Mac OS, we do greatly appreciate Mr. Dell’s honesty today.
“Go Pound Sand!” – lol
You had me for 3 seconds – no two – make that 1.5 seconds.
But you know it’s gonna happen…
Few years from now, this might not be the April’s fool. Instead it could be the real thing, and HP/Lenovo/Acer/Sony isn’t the reason why …it’s Apple. PC sales have pretty much no growth right now and Apple’s marketshare is getting higher, if this continues someone has to go. My bets are on either Acer or Dell.
“I was tempted by your offer of humor MDN for Zero point six eight seconds, sir. For an android, that is nearly an eternity.”
Wishful thinking