On October 6, 1997, in response to the question of what he’d do if he was in charge of Apple, 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 01, 2008, Apple’s market value quadrupled that of Dell’s, $158.66 billion vs. $38.97 billion, respectively.
On February 12, 2009, Apple rose $2.60 to hit a market value of $88.37 billion or 5 times that of Dell’s $17.52 billion.
Today in NASDAQ trading, Apple rose $11.21 to $201.07 to hit a market value of $180.12 billion or more than 6 times that of Dell’s current $29.97 billion.
Apple is also a debt-free company and currently has significantly more cash on-hand, $34 billion, than Dell Inc. is worth.
Got any snappy retorts now, Mr. Dell?
AAPL and DELL quotes via NASDAQ are here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
I feel sorry for the employees of Dell who have to watch their company fail. But Mickey, karma’s a biatch!
I never tire of this…
Sex? My mother wouldn’t approve…
Love it! I remember that statement. Hurt my feelings because I was a die-hard Apple fan. I was worried for a short while that Apple was going to fold and I would be stuck using Windows again. *shudder*
Sorry Steve, Dell is only in your sights if you’re using a telescopic rearview mirror.
As fun as it is to poke fun at Mikey . . . the real target is coming up . . . MSFT, “We’re coming after you, you’re in our sights.”
I love this stuff. Glorious payback from all the abuse we took from PC/Dell/Gateway/Compaq-bigots who derided us for choosing a “piece of fruit” as our weapon of choice.
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@Mormegil
C’mon they called Macs TOYS, certainly not weapons.
High gloat-factor article!
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Dear Apple. With your stock over $200, now is the time to SIDAGTMBTTS. please?
Regards,
Mikey Dell
Silicon Graphics indeed.
I also never tire of this. No more snappy retorts from anyone, except one. And they are next.
@ Snow Leopard–
Then how did you get here?
@ Mr. Reeee–
That was a paradox I never understood. They called them toys, while a the same time crying that there were no games available for the platform!
As fun as it is to torture Mikey with his own words, it will be WAY more fun to throw them back at Ballmer. Nothing quite like the combination of arrogance and incompetence to make people want to see you fail.
P.S. Hope that M$ keeps him another 1-2 years, that’s all it will take…
Entering “dell vs apple market cap” into wolframalpha.com provides a nice chart of this saga. (Set for “Last 10 years”.)
Apple’s market capitalization took some scary hits in the past year or so; even with those dramatic dips, though, the trend vs Dell remains striking.
When Steve made that “threat” (“We’re coming after you!”), Dell was worth five times more than Apple (market cap).
Today, Apple’s worth is two thirds that of Microsoft. Apple’s stock has tripled over the past three years. If it manages to hit $300, Apple will officially be larger than Microsoft.
This is in no way unrealistic. And the moment it does happen will be far sweeter than the one from January 2007, when AAPL eclipsed DELL market cap.
As the owner of a company that builds batteries, some of which are for laptops. I had a dialog with Dell, inviting them to see our new technology at the consumer electronics show in January, which would enable their laptops to run for 100.3 hours on a single charge. Dell was ignorantly disrespectful to the new technology. I informed them that we would not be selling any of our batteries to Dell for the next 3 years and that they might as well close discontinue their laptop production.
Keep selling them Netbooks Mr. Dell. Yeah you’ll move gazillions of them, but your profit margin is like what 1 cent a piece? LOL
In the uk a few weeks back we had a great docusoap on Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry the major uk players in the early days of the desktop computer revolution, amongst other things. Not only was it funny and fascinating but it really did give us a great insight into how dangerous it is to spout off arrogantly when you are on top in such a changing market.
These two companies and figures were soon eaten alive by the likes of Amstrad in the uk who itself was within a few years eaten alive by Dell and others from around the World. Now it is Dells turn to eat dust and oh how Mikey must wish he had held his lose cannon of a tongue and been a little more humble.
As a footnote it is hardly likely that Dell himself will leave us as worthy a memorial as Chris Curry did in the form of ARM micro processors. Indeed he might struggle to be as impactful as that other joker Alan Sugar (Amstrad) has been in hosting the UK version of the Apprentice.
Ha ha…Jubei. Dell sucks! My brother is a huge fan of PC, specifically Dell. I told him that the only people who don’t like Apple, are people who can’t afford them. Thank you Billy for building the WalMart version of an operating system.
I like the word sex when we talk about Apple and Dell….
Steve: Mikey…is that your wallet on the ground?
Mike: Yes I believe it is……arrrrrggghhhhhh
Steve: Heh heh heh
dell’s a homo
can someone in the press go get a recent quote from this douch on his response to his huge ego and his ‘great vision’
I‘ve heard this reference to M Dell speech many time before – any one has a link to actual video? I think should join the ranks of infamous videos aka Ballmer laughing at iPhone.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Apple+Dell
Dell’s ability to predict the future is no different, and just as wrong, as many tech “gurus” over the years. In the early 1940’s, Thomas Watson, the head of IBM, said he could not imagine a need for more than 5 or 6 computers in the entire US.
When it comes to tech, you need to keep your mouth shut.