On October 6, 1997, in response to the question of what he’d do if he was in charge of Apple Computer, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell stood before a crowd of several thousand IT executives and answered flippantly, “What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”
A little more than a month later, on November 10, 1997, new Apple Interim CEO (iCEO) Steve Jobs responded, speaking in front of an image of Michael Dell’s bulls-eye covered face, “We’re coming after you; you’re in our sights.”
On January 13, 2006, after a little more than eight years of hard work, Apple Inc. passed Dell, Inc. in market value, $72.13 billion vs. $71.97 billion at market close, respectively.
On July 27, 2007, Apple’s value doubled that of Dell’s, $127.81 billion vs. $63.65 billion, respectively.
On December 6, 2007, Apple’s market value passed 3 times that of Dell’s, $165.66 billion vs. $54.42 billion, respectively.
On May 1, 2008, Apple rose $6.05, or 3.48%, to close at $180.00 and the company’s market value passed 4 times that of Dell’s, $158.66 billion vs. $38.97 billion.
Even after the recent market meltdown, and factoring in the $12.12 that Apple gained in after-hours trading today following stellar results, Apple is still worth nearly 4 times that of Dell, $91.79 billion vs. $24.66 billion, respectively.
Not only that, but today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed that Apple currently has $25 billion in the bank and is a debt-free company.
In other words, Apple could basically buy Dell outright and, oh, what the heck, shut it down and keep the money since they’d be the only shareholders. (Of course, that’d be the kind of horribly-conceived deal only Steve Ballmer would pursue.)
Got any snappy retorts now, Mr. Dell?
AAPL and DELL quotes via NASDAQ are here.
What else would $25 or so billion buy?
• Research in Motion – $28.57 billion
• Sony (includes Sony Music Entertainment) – $25.43 billlion
• Amazon – $21.39 billion
• Activision Blizzard – $17.13 billion
• Yahoo – $16.73 billion*
• Adobe – $14.65 billion
• Motorola – $12.87 billion
• Electronic Arts – $8.98 billion
• Autodesk – $5.48 billion**
• EMI Group (includes EMI Music) – $3.67 billion
• SanDisk – $3.32 billion
• Warner Music Group – $720.67 million***
• RealNetworks – $600.47 million****
• Palm – $463.20 million
• Napster – $126.46 million
*But, that just might kill Ballmer; better to leave him right where he is for as long as it takes.
**Can you say “AutoCAD for Mac OS X at half the price of the Windows version along with the announcement that Windows support would be phased out over a two-year period combined with the offer to double the number of licenses at no extra cost by migrating to Mac OS X?” We knew you could.
***Eliminate the Middlebronfman, indeed.
****Hey, don’t laugh, that’s still a lot of doughnuts!
Buy Dell? What a waste of money!
Ha-Ha
Amusing, but of course there is no upside for Apple in buying Dell. Dell has nothing of value for Apple. In fact, Dell has nothing of value for anyone, except maybe Microsoft which could benefit from a captive hardware brand.
Buying Dell — talk about flushing your money down the toilet!
Sounds like something Ballmer would do.
Do they have enough money to buy Adobe outright?
Why spend a load of cash on a load of shit?
Dell is rotting away at the industry bottom very nicely. No need to interfere with things.
Michael would probably like to be bought out about now!
Sounds like something Ballmer would do.
Don’t give Fat Fscking Fester any ideas!!!
Although it’d be fun to watch.
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If I was Steve Jobs, I will buy Dell and pimp out Mikey and all his shareholders too. And then I would laugh in there face and ask who the bitch now
To R2… Yes we do. Stay tuned.
“Do they have enough money to buy Adobe outright?”
At close today $14.635B.
Yes.
There are some upsides to Apple buying Adobe. There are also downsides. It would be a very big acquisition that would take years to complete in terms of bringing the companies cultures together and melding and updating the product lines.
That is actually quite amusing.
Microsoft should buy Dell. It would be consistent. The Zune competes against Microsoft’s “partners” in the music player business. There’s talk of MS buying RIM, and they’d be competing against partners in the mobile phone business. And Dell would complete the picture, with Microsoft-branded PCs.
Funny how Dell’s market cap is going down at a very steady rate. If you graph it, it should reach zero in about nine months.
Come on, folks, MDN is not seriously talking about Apple buying Dell… it’s an illustration to drive home a point.
BTW, you gotta love MDN’s elephantesque memory, pulling this one from 1996
Just for giggles.
Apple:
Today’s close $91.49
45% of 52 week high.
108% of 52 week low.
Dell:
Today’s close $12.58
41% of 52 week high.
103% of 52 week low.
Abode:
Today’s close $27.59
57% of 52 week high.
113% of 52 week low.
Everyone’s stock is being hammered. This has made Apple’s cash in hand, which many analysts deride as a waste of resources, much more valuable.
I dont know if they’ll buy dell, but SJ did say himself, these current crisis is a great time to have cash to have a little spending room
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Adobe mkt cap: US$14.65B, currently hovering around $28 / share.
A better takeover would be Autodesk which currently has a mkt cap of US$5.48B and is trading at about $24 / share …
Apple could essentially corner the Architectural / Engineering CAD market overnight.
MaWo: ‘respect’. lol
Apple doesn’t need to buy Dell or Adobe…what’s the point? I think they should buy Blizzard Entertainment and start doing for online gaming what they’ve done for online music. If Apple can move significantly into the consumer-gaming arena, they’d have music, phones, computers, gaming. Rock and roll…. hehehe 😀
@Nutcracker,
That’s an interesting idea. Less cash up front and a smaller product line makes it easier to digest. AutoCAD would require a complete rewrite, but it’s in desperate need of that already. For their cash Apple would get Maya, the AutoCAD brand, and remove a company very hostile to Apple. Add in another billion to get an interim OS X release working and write a true cross-platform version. I imagine after a year or two both Maya and AutoCAD would be spun off as wholly owned subsidiaries a la FileMaker.
Interesting.
Maybe Adobe is not a wise buy. But I have to admit, I am kinda itching for Apple to buy something big and shake things up a little.
I don’t see Dell making more than a few years. There products are crap and they will go the way of Gateway. Notice how Windows based systems manufacturers always end up going south. Anyway, Apple isn’t going to buy anything big, they will save their money. Dell will go out of business on their own. No one is going to pay high prices for Windows PC’s and that means low margin for Dell.
Actually, for all those that think this would be a terrible idea, think about this.
Apple could basically buy the brand. While Dell has a poor brand in the consumer market, they are still pretty strong in business. Apple could buy Dell and focus the company primary on business. Maybe even fork OS X into consumer and business models? But that is just crazy.
The lint in my pockets would bring more than what Dell is worth.
I really hate Dell. I really, really, really do.
And Lenovo too. Both brands are cheap turds.
@doc e,
What Apple did for online music was provide the marketplace. They don’t need to buy a gaming house to promote games on the Mac. There is a lot they can do ancillary to game production to make the Mac an attractive platform for game developers, including, as some have suggested, subsidizing one or two houses.
@Passerby. Precisely; and they also did it with the App store for the iPhone. In essence, they provided an infrastructure that didn’t exist before. Blizzard has the best online gaming infrastructure in the business. If Apple were to acquire that along with the games and talent at Blizz, they could make that online infrastructure the gaming version of the iTunes store or the iApp store.
Imagine gaming developers not having to spend time and money developing the online infrastructure the way they do now, but just develop a game that can be plugged into an existing one. Like developers not having to develop a distribution infrastructure for their iPhone apps; just put it on the iApp store.
Apple could dramatically improve the game scene for Macs with a move like this; more games, better games…faster….just like with applications on the iPhone.
Just an idea…
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Buy Adobe & Autodesk. Apple is very aware of the power of a good brand, and for better or worse, these two companies have strong brands in their respective fields.
Then phase out Windows versions, or better yet, have the Windows versions lag Mac by several years. Or make the Windows product a dog in performance.
Apple’s world domination will follow shortly. And they would still have about $5 billion (and growing) left over.