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!
Avid would be the best fit for Apple. At a 6.6 Million to 7 Million buyout, Avid is a good bargain that wouldn’t effect Apples cash strong balance sheet all that much and Avid would add a nice mix to Apple’s product lines and help to add some strong engineering resources too in both the Software, Hardware and consumer electronics fronts.
I use AutoCAD and Revit, both by Autodesk, so I would love to see Apple buy Autodesk because it would mean that these programs would finally be made to run natively on Mac OS. They would need to take more than two years to phase out the Windows version though.
ArchiCAD and VectorWorks, both by Nemetschek, run on both Windows and Mac OS. that’s why I’m switching to them.
All four of these programs are in the same price range, $4,000 plus or minus, and they’re all worth it. they’re for professionals, not hobbyists. Apple wouldn’t drop the prices on AutoCAD or Revit anymore than they would on Macs.
Missing the point…
BUY DELL so apple can get their factories & systems.
KILL DELL all together.
Apple would then design + manufacture APPLE computers + aluminum shells.
Apple just bought Semi Chip company.
Apple should buy nVidia too.
This would give Apple leverage with IBM PowerPC + Intel Chips.
hmmm…
Actually, the Autodesk buyout does make sense. Lots of architects would LOVE to be purchasing Apple’s cool-looking machines. I think it would turn around ancillary businesses as well to become Apple-centric.
Or here’s another idea; buy Fender or Gibson. I would love to see a “music instruments” division of Apple. Just think of the guitars, software, gear, etc. that would happen if Jony Ive and Co. were cut loose on music gear innovation.
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Intuit:
every year a lot of small businesses (and not so small ones) and their accountants have to purchase new copies of Quickbooks. The OSX versions are never really compatible with windows.
Could be a good entry into that market for selling hardware. Still don’t have to deal with major corporations.
1.
buy autodesk and corel and spin off all the profesional software (incl. Aperture, Final Cut, Logic, Shake etc. in a separate company). give every apple-stockholder their share of it and ipo that new company (Pear?).
2.
give us a special dividend of 20$ a share, payable dec. 1. (that would be a christmas present for us suffering shareholders!)
with apple generating about 4 bn in cash each quarter now there would still be 5bn left in cash on the bank at the beginning of 2009. enough to weather any storm.
They’d be better off buying Psystar!
Actually, Apple would only have to buy 51% of Adobe.
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$7.5 billion by the number up above.
Don’t buy anything. Hold the money and keep scaring the crap out of micro$oft who is constantly wondering what Apple is going to buy.
What’s up? Is MDN sick today?
Sure, and I could sell my house and buy a herd of camels, but WTF would I do that!
What about buying Quicken?
And build Apple business solutions for small businesses.
iPhone / Macs / MobileUs / Financials
SONY is the best option.
Kill the PC division and the mobile phone division. Integrate the iPod and Apple TV into the home electronics division. Then rule the living rooms and media rooms of the world.
hummmmm
Otherwise, keep the money… stay the course. They’re already doing F A B U L O U S.
**To Hell with Dell~~~~~~~~~>
Buy Blizard.
Then withdraw Windows support.
That’s a million Macs right there!
Wait a few more years and Dell will be worth $1. Then buy it and give it to Ballmer as a gift.
If only most Americans workers and companies worked like Apple – work hard, impress, keep creating better products (=greater VALUE), earn more, and save – our economy wouldn’t be the mess it is in. This is what happens when the society models itself after Microsoft – all the supposed values are stolen, borrowed, ballooned, or faked. There’s nothing MSFT’s products and services intrinsically can offered that cannot be had or replaced by alternatives at a fraction of the price.
@Pete
Totally agree with the purchase of Sun. For a song and a dance, and with money to spare to still buy someone else, Sun would give them a whole whack of IP including SPARC, Java, ZFS as well as a very strong server line-up. OS-X seems completely portable (PPC, Intel and ARM versions of it now), so a SPARC version doesn’t seem impossible. Aside from ZFS, there are other things Solaris could offer OS-X, from simply avoiding patent infringement, to embedded OS virtualization.
Why buy RIM when you could just bring it down little by little with the iPhone and wait it out as Microsoft degrades itself to oblivion?
Adobe… now *that* would be a coup.
You kidding? Wasting $ on Dell?! In fact, Apple has enough cash to buy up BOTH Ford and GM and still have enough scratch to snatch up Adobe. Touch screen moonroof on your new Apple Corvette Explorer Hybrid running Photoshop anyone?
Damn, you beat me to the punch.
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Apple could buy all of the Detroit tin-benders: GM, Ford, AND Chrysler. And probably still have spare change left for Adobe.
GM’s Chevy Volt wouldn’t be a bad contender for Apple’s “iCar”, assuming the Volt isn’t complete vaporware.
(The way GM pre-announced the Volt years ahead, then recently showcased the Volt’s latest styling, was too reminiscent of Microsoft’s development cycle.)
How about this long shot. Apple should buy Ford since it cheap at about 4.8 Billion.
A safer bet would be to buy a controlling interest in the good ones that way you can influence them w/o taking them over. Apple don’t need more baggage and to buy up a couple of companies and then have to manage & restructure them would be foolish. Unless it was the smaller ones that would make a difference in Apple themselves like PA Semi. More Adobe competition would be better than just scooping them up and there’s plenty of talent that could be corralled into their camp but that’s their call and they’re not making it,…yet.
Such silliness. This is an irrelevant discussion. Dell is doing as well as can be expected in its niche in this market, and will continue to do so. There will always be a market for computers for bottom-feeders (enterprise and the weak-minded or poverty-level consumers). Companies like Dell are cockroaches. Step on one, and another one shows up to take it’s place. It’s got nothing to do with Apple, unless they make the mistake to produce commodity products.
For all those who have said Apple should be producing cheap(er) products, if they had they’d be suffering the same fate right now that Dell and the rest are, instead of experiencing recession-busting growth.
If Apple ever lets OSX show up on cheap boxes, or tries to compete on price, they’ll self-destruct within 5 years.
I don’t really think apple should buy anyone. If I really had to choose, I would choose Sun Microsystems. That would get them into business a lot more than buying Dell.
As for adobe, they have really been playing it safe. Notice how all adobe apps are at least 300 MB and are quite “heavy.” They have their own platform to port to the mac, and they obviously don’t want to optimize their applications for the mac. However, if Apple hired workers to make an application BETTER, than adobe, it would be much better, faster, have a lighter footprint, and much cheaper than adobe’s software. Think about this for a second: When Microsoft Office was the biggest thing out there and everyone pretty much had to use it, what did apple do? They made iWork, which is much better than office, and optimized much more for the mac operating system and hardware, giving the user a much better experience.
Aperture is a already a first step (competing with Adobe Lightroom), and I hope soon apple comes out with their own photo editing software that’s better.
This is boring – especially after 2 days. Are you still so consumed with Dell that you keep putting it at the top of the page. Who cares anymore?
“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.”
Huh?
How could you keep the money? The money would be gone – given to the Dell shareholders in exchange for their stock.