“It was no less an expert than Michael Dell who forecast the demise of Apple Computer Inc. In 2001, the chairman and founder of the computer company that bears his name said Apple had sealed its fate by failing to build computers that used Intel Corp. microprocessors and software from Microsoft Corp. In sticking with its own proprietary technologies, Apple could not survive. ‘We know how the movie ends,’ Mr. Dell, now 39, said. ‘It’s just a question of what happens in the middle,'” David Akin writes for The Globe and Mail.
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, so now slapping together cheap components into commodity boxes devoid of imagination, depending wholly upon someone else’s mediocre OS, re-branding Creative’s MP3 players (but not selling many), and negotiating good shipping rates based on volume qualifies someone as an “expert?” Please, don’t get us started on Michael Dell. Uh oh, too late…
“But three years later, it is Apple – not Dell Inc. – that some say is now the best bet for investors interested in backing a computer maker,” Akin writes. “Long an ugly duckling for investors, the Cupertino, Calif., company has been the soaring swan of the market for the past year. Its stock is up 176 per cent in the past 12 months (it closed yesterday at $70.10 U.S.), compared with 13 percent for Dell. Apple already rivals Round Rock, Tex.-based Dell in manufacturing efficiency, and is poised to beat it on profit margins, earnings and revenue growth. On new product innovation, analysts say, Apple is unrivalled.”
MacDailyNews Take: Perhaps Mr. Dull should consider shutting it down and giving the money back to the shareholders? Now where’d we get that crazy idea? God knows, it would probably boost world productivity 30% if people dumped Windows running on box assembler Dell’s hardware and switched to Apple Macs running Mac OS X. And think of the IT staff savings alone!
“The much ballyhooed iPod digital music player has been an important part of Apple’s resurrection story; iPod sales went through the roof during 2004’s final quarter. But the bigger story may be Apple’s resurgence as a computer maker. According to financial results released this week, sales of Macintosh computers jumped 26 per cent compared with the year-earlier quarter – double the growth rate for the rest of the computer business. For the first time in eons, Apple is gaining market share. ‘The company could have begun a market share breakout story that could last for the foreseeable future,’ Steven Fortuna, an analyst at Prudential Equity Group LLC wrote in research note last week.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Michael Dell needs a head reduction, literally and figuratively. He’s a commodity Wintel box assembler who figured out how to do it cheaper than everybody else. Wow. Okay, so he got rich doing it – so did Mahlon Haines who got rich selling non-descript shoes. You know, Mahlon Haines? M-A-H… Oh, forget it. How will Dell be regarded by historians? Michael Dell is to Steve Jobs as William Henry Harrison is to George Washington. Michael Dell, if he’s really lucky, is destined to become a footnote in personal computer history.