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.
• 2X: On July 27, 2007, Apple’s value doubled that of Dell’s, $127.81 billion vs. $63.65 billion, respectively.
• 3X:On December 6, 2007, Apple’s market value passed 3 times that of Dell’s, $165.66 billion vs. $54.42 billion, respectively.
• 4X:On May 01, 2008, Apple’s market value quadrupled that of Dell’s, $158.66 billion vs. $38.97 billion, respectively.
• 5X: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.
• 6X:On October 20, 2009, 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 $29.97 billion.
• 7X:In NASDAQ trading today, Apple gained $7.57 to $210.64 to hit a market value of $189.72 billion or more than 7 times that of Dell’s current $27.03 billion.
Apple is also a debt-free company and currently has significantly more cash and short-term investments on-hand ($39.8 billion) than Dell Inc. is worth.
Got any snappy retorts now, Mr. Dell?
See AAPL and DELL quotes via NASDAQ here.
Apple’s annual revenues are now equal to Dell’s, too: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=DELL while their margins are 8 times higher.
And they almost have MSFT’s revenues, too!
Karmic revenge (x 7) is so sweet..
Thanks Cosmos!
.:.
Mikey,
You know what you should do, so do it already.
Great article!!
Apple if you were thinking of selling the company and giving the money back to the shareholders, Now’s a good time!!!!
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In case MDN doesn’t post this in time for us to get a vote in, (or doesn’t post it as news worthy). I don’t know what the cut off time is for the votes:
Vote for Apple. Scroll to the bottom, look on the right side.
http://www.cnn.com/
You forgot to paint a bulls-eye on that image. Unless, of course, you mean the bull’s eye literally…
MacRaven:
Apparently, over 150,000 people voted already, and nearly half of them seem to be Apple fans.
Online polls are always self-selecting, and consequently, self-serving (a good example is the one about glossy macs), but when the sample is this big, and it is on cnn.com, you can take at least some of it seriously.
The picture of a cross eyed Michael Dell above is worth a thousand words!
Bummer that there seems to be no online video of Dell’s profound statements.
Is Dell always that bong eyed or is it just that particular photo?
Apple is the 4th most valuable company in the USA. Only
Exxon/Mobil
Microsoft
and WalMart
are larger. And, WalMart is not that much larger at $205B. Apple is at $192B right now and climbing. Microsoft is just one disappointing earnings call away from getting Dell’d by Apple, if you know what I mean.
Oh Mikey Mikey Mikey
Life as a Pig-eyed, Punk-assed, Frat-boy loser ain’t so easy now that your house of cards has fallen!
Bad weave too biaaaatch!
Never trust a man who’s eyes are too close together…!
Apple made net profits of 3.4 billion in the quarter.
In Dell’s last report (November) Dell made 337 million.
The comparison is not exactly correct because Dell hasn’t released it’s latest (Christmas quarter) results but still the net profit difference is mind blowing.
This story never gets old.
Yep, it’s shocking, Dell only sold $51B in the last 4 quarters, and Apple is now on pace to sell $51B, as Steve Jobs noted.
And, the key difference is that Apple is now on pace to earn $11B this year, while Dell only earned $1.5B in the last 4 quarters. Wow, that’s a real comeuppance.
Dell is about as relevant as the Zune…..
“What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.” – Michael Dell (1997)
“We’re coming after you, you’re in our sights.” – Steve Jobs’s answer (1997)
“We’ve pasted you, you look tiny in our rear mirror.” – Mac+ to Dell (2010)
@Mac+
I remember that… they even had Ali boxing around a video once…. M Dell should have kept his mouth shut. Instead he was all cocky and acted like king of the world… LOL
Does anyone have a clue of why Dell is still in business? Oh, lower prices, you say? Cheap crap that’s a waste of money no matter how much or how little, I say.
Dell is old news, Acer has pretty much taken their spot as king of the cheap crap.
Losers!
I will never get tired of this one. =)
“What would I do? I’d shut Dell down and rent the company out for birthday and Bar Mitzvah parties.”
Really MDN, you are merciless. You shouldn’t keep rubbing it in.
But I just lurve it.
Now where did BadaBingBadaBoomBadaBomb guy (Im a PC) go?
Oh yes. Meds time. Double dose today I think.
@ Question
Because the Government buys Dells 100% and they are not cheap.
@dijonaise
i don’t often comment on readers’ posts, but your dig about the weave and “biaaaatch!” has really made my day—i can make it to 5 now!
and that foto of michael dell—looks like a young “cotton hill” (hank’s dad)…
Apple is now also worth more then the Evil Goo empire.
GOOG market cap $173.83B
AAPL market cap $190.54B
His eyes are too close together.
This would make a great documentary and/or book. If I were a business grad student, this would be part of a my thesis or dissertation.
Nice progress, Apple. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The game isn’t over. Apple has real competition on which it must focus.
Toshiba or Samsung or Acer or Lenovo is going to swallow Dell, and Mikey will be given the biggest golden parachute west of the Hudson river. As frustrating as it is that the company Dell started won’t live to see 2015, he still won the lottery, which is better than >99% of us.
Apple might better spend some of its cash investing in additional manufacturing capacity/partners. Perhaps some of Sony’s infrastructure would be a good fit to expand Apple’s market share in Japan and Europe (and maybe steer Blu-Ray away from the dead-end HDCP fiasco too).
…get tired of that.
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Steve-owned!
You know, I’ve reveled in how Apple continues to leave Dell in the dust for a couple of years now. But, I think it’s time to retire these updates, save for the time (soon) when Apple will be worth ten times Dell. Otherwise, it’s just not very sporting anymore. There is little hope Dell will ever regain traction, so they’ll just continue to fade into irrelevancy. Why give Dell any more attention? You’re just kicking Dell when it’s down… down… down. Stop looking in the rear view mirror, and let’s focus on whose next in Apple’s sights.
What’s truly funny is that not only has Apple’s market cap increased substantially since Michael Dell made his cocky comment, but Dell’s has diminished substantially, indicating that the company can’t even exhibit modest growth in its largely irrelevant sphere of influence.
Apple is rapidly approaching the mkt value of Micro$haft, and my my, that will be a very interesting day indeed when Apple pulls ahead.
If Ballmer is still there, there will be an emergency call to staples for new chairs and CVS for more antiperspirant.
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Developers! Developers! Developers! : Damn they’re all developing for the iPhone!!!!
We in the Mac community know the truth about the now beleaguered Dell. On the evidence of my brother’s continuing purchase of Dell machines, I wonder how long this knowledge will reach the average Windows PC buyer?
The gift that keeps on giving?
Yeah of course, but c’mon, this was 13 years ago, and nobody knew what Jobs was going to do. Dell’s words came back to bite him a thousand times, and it couldn’t happen to a duller guy, but can we move on at last?
Mickey has changed his tune. These days he`s singing “Regrets, I`ve had a few…… ” (Boy, do I regret that line about SIDAGTMBTTS!!)
“Revenge is a dish best served cold” according to the great Khan of Star Trek fame.
Is this the first time since 1997 that MDN failed to use “beleaguered” in a Dell head?
Someone on vacation?
Look like he’s just eaten a bowl full of prunes! Or is he on the vege of crying?
I mean ‘verge’…
I’ve never understood Dell being located in Austin. Just doesn’t seem to fit.
Mikey may be wealthy, but what of any consequence has Dell designed or built? Absolutely nothing comes to mind. We can describe Dell using one word and one word only – cheap. That defines everything they do.