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.”