Dell plunged 15% to $18.72 in pre-market Inet trading after saying it expected fiscal second-quarter earnings of 21 to 23 cents a share, below the average analyst estimate compiled by Thomson First Call of 32 cents a share, due primarily to aggressive pricing in a slowing commercial market.
The Round Rock, Texas-based Dell now sees earnings of 21 to 23 cents a share for the July period on revenue of about $14 billion.
Current market values:
• Apple – $51,064,500,320
• Dell – $44,447,732,640
MacDailyNews Take: If Dell ceased to exist today – say Michael Dell sold the company and gave the money back to the shareholders – nobody outside the company would care. Another Windows box assembler would simply slide into place and the mediocrity would continue unabated.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Survey shows big jump in consumer interest in buying Apple Mac; Dell takes steep slide – July 06, 2006
The Wired 40: Apple #2, Microsoft drops to #36, Dell falls off list – June 28, 2006
Dell laptop explodes into flames at Japanese conference – June 21, 2006
Time Magazine on Apple’s 13-inch MacBook: ‘Dell and HP should be very worried’ – June 07, 2006
The Channel Insider: Dell is no Apple – May 31, 2006
Will Dell’s retail computer stores work sans inventory? – May 30, 2006
Dell to open retail stores – May 22, 2006
Dell burned by selling machines at bargain-basement prices last quarter, pain may not be over – May 09, 2006
Dell warns 1Q earnings will miss mark; shares tumble – May 08, 2006
Apple passes Dell in market value – May 02, 2006
The Motley Fool: Apple ‘may be the next Dell’ – April 07, 2006
Dude, you got a Dell? What are you, stupid? Only Apple Macs run both Mac OS X and Windows! – April 05, 2006
Payback? Wall Street didn’t like Apple passing Dell in market value – February 09, 2006
Apple Mac is #1 in European education market, pushes Dell down into second place – February 03, 2006
BusinessWeek: How can Apple be worth more than Dell? – January 20, 2006
Steve Jobs emails Apple team: Michael Dell not the best prognosticator, Apple worth more than Dell – January 16, 2006
Apple now worth more than Dell – January 13, 2006
Apple primed to pass Dell in market value – January 12, 2006
Corporate IT buyers fuming that Apple has Intel Core Duo Macs shipping while Dell and HP wait – January 12, 2006
Financial Times: Dell and Microsoft can never hope to attain Apple’s Mac aura – January 10, 2006
Struggling Dell has lost its mojo while Apple shows rapid growth – November 07, 2005
Apple growing faster with more innovative products, better support than ‘one-trick pony’ Dell – November 01, 2005
IDC: Apple shows rapid growth, holds 4.3% U.S. market share on 48% growth – October 17, 2005
Michael Dell say’s he’d be happy to sell Apple’s Mac OS X if Steve Jobs decides to license – June 16, 2005
Why buy a Dell when Apple ‘Macintel’ computers will run both Mac OS X and Windows? – June 08, 2005
Apple Macs are less expensive than Dell PCs – April 25, 2005
Dell CEO: Apple can’t just have one product and then say they’re the innovative leader of the world – February 22, 2005
BusinessWeek: Rather than dismissing Apple products as fads, Dell should try starting a few – January 31, 2005
Dismissive Dell CEO not impressed with Apple Mac mini, calls iPod a ‘one-product wonder’ and a ‘fad’ – January 17, 2005
Michael Dell owes Apple an apology; Apple up 176 percent vs. Dell’s 13 percent in past 12 months – January 15, 2005
It’s just funny watching people drool over the idea of 3.73 GHz dual processor dual core (4 cores total) workstations coming available later in the year, when they can buy those systems today in the PC world.
The day when there’s anything different about Apple hardware other than the packaging are over.
Apple – Yesterday’s computers Tomorrow.
“You couldn’t be more wrong.”
Tug, tell me more.
I didn’t say nobody would care, just hardly anybody except Mac Aficionados. There’s probably even a few people who might be sad if Dell went.
” If Dell ceased to exist today – say Michael Dell sold the company and gave the money back to the shareholders – nobody outside the company would care. Another Windows box assembler would simply slide into place and the mediocrity would continue unabated.”
There is a difference, a very big difference. Apple has style, ease of use, creativity, security,OSX, and iLife software suite. Dell just builds PC boxes, slaps in Windows with a bunch of spyware and sells them at discount rates. Apple is driving the PC market while Dell just exists because to many people are brain washed that Windows is the only operating system that you can use and they think there getting a good deal. In reality there not. There getting the cheapest quality hardware which has a very high failure rate. They get poor customer service from India that no one can understand. I’m afraid Apple is very different in every way possible than Dell.
It’s time for mikey dell to sell all the stocks and return the money to the share holders!!
“I’m afraid Apple is very different in every way possible than Dell.”
Did it ever occur to you that that is intentional.
Dell intends to be a low cost, extremely efficient producer of commodity hardware. They’re succeeding at it very well.
Apple intends to be a niche producer of stylish PC clones running Mac OS X.
Dell intends to sell a lot of hardware cheap based on operational excellence.
Apple intends to sell the same hardware to fewer people for more money based on stylish cases and good marketing.
They’re quite different strategies.
To say Dell doesnt try to do well what Apple tries to do well is to misunderstand that they don’t because they don’t want to.
And if you think that Apple has a special line on “Better” CPUs, hard disk drives, memory etc, then they’ve really got you fooled. Both are built by outsourced manufacturers using exactly the same components.
But that goes to show, Apple are good at marketing. Kudos to Apple for creating that perception with you.
“Apple is driving the PC market “
Apple’s not driving anything. For most people they’re a curiosity.
Microsoft, Intel, Dell and other vendors are driving the PC market.
Poor deleaguered Dell. I think that they should hire Gil Amelio as CEO to turn it around!
SCHADENFREUDE!
Yep! Well, Michael Dell, that’s what you get when your company DOESN’T DO ANYTHING ORIGINAL!! Michael Dell, you don’t INNOVATE one thing at all — all you do is sit back & assemble boxes. Dell, ANYBODY could do what you do — put a handful of monkeys in a room and they could do the same exact thing.
“It’s time for mikey dell to sell all the stocks and return the money to the share holders!!”
Just how ignorant are you about public companies? The shareholders own the stock, not Michael Dell although he is also a shareholder. They decide if and when to sell (except in some situations like mergers).
Like most tech stocks, most of Dell’s value isn’t in it’s cash or other assets, it’s in it’s future earnings.
You’d get more money selling your shares.
And yep, there’s some selling going on today…
Hey, SteveJackIsTalkingOutOfHisAss —
If you REALLY believe that the entire computer sector would NOT be affected if Apple ceased to exist tomorrow, you are truly insane.
Apple is virtually the ONLY consumer-oriented computer company doing ANY significant R&D in order to move the technological paradigm forward. Dell does NOTHING except research how to assemble boxes more cheaply. Such “research” is not life-changing, industry-altering, or paradigm-shifting. But what Apple does actually IS!
It has been said that the other computer companies utilize Apple as their R&D arm, taking much of what Apple develops and monetizing it as best they can to their own advantage. I believe this to be predominantly accurate.
What is the last technological innovation for which Dell has been responsible?
[crickets]
MDN is correct — If Dell went away tomorrow there would be barely a hiccup from the public or the tech world, since they bring nothing to the table except low-priced commodity boxes. A “specialty” which can be easily and quickly filled by dozens of other manufacturers.
“that’s what you get when your company DOESN’T DO ANYTHING ORIGINAL!!”
There’s some strange perception in this forum that a company has to be original to make money.
If that were the case, most businesses in America wouldn’t exist.
“put a handful of monkeys in a room and they could do the same exact thing.”
Sure, but not for the price that Dell does it. They tend to fling too much shit around and destroy perfectly good components.
Seriously, if you think you can duplicate Dell’s logistics in a trivial way, and get to 34% share of the US market for PCs, I’d pick up your monkeys and get busy.
It’s not Dell’s technology that makes them unique, it’s their operational excellence.
Great take MDN; couldn’t have said it any better.
MDN Magic Word: “other” That’s just eerie!
“What is the last technological innovation for which Dell has been responsible?”
You completely miss the point. Dell’s not trying to innovate. They’re trying to sell PCs and doing very well at it.
To say that Apple is the font of all innovation in the computer industry is pretty ignorant.
Apple could disappear and we’d still have new PCs and MP3 players being developed. After all Apple gets most of it’s creative ideas from outside too. They’re just really good at pretending they invented stuff.
Tell me one life changing thing that Apple invented last year.
Here’s a question: Why do we have to keep comparing Macs to Dells? For me there is no comparison, I don’t give two flying …leaps about Dell… The fact that enjoy and prefer using a Macintosh has nothing to do with what Dell does or doesn’t do.
Can somebody please give me a freaking break.
Next story.
@ SteveJackIs…blah!
Dell intends to be a low cost, extremely efficient producer of commodity hardware. They’re succeeding at it very well.
Really? Then I don’t understand how their market cap has declined by over 57% since 4th March 2005. Increased sales at the expense of profitability has the faint whiff of overtrading to it.
Apple intends to be a niche producer of stylish PC clones running Mac OS X.
Have I read a more shallow comment this year? Possibly not. Merely because a system has the same processor, I/O, graphics etc. does not make it a PC clone. Given that Apple have adopted EFI ahead of the real PC clone industry, which isn’t even supported by MSFT for Windows XP and that BIOS is the sine qua non of so-called ISA personal computers, I’m not even certain you can level the term ‘clone’ at Apple’s products.
Dell intends to sell a lot of hardware cheap based on operational excellence.
Operational excellence should also include service excellence. Where does Dell fall on that curve ? How about build quality? I’m a big fan of multi-purpose computers, but a laptop that can double as a barbecue seems a little extreme.
Apple’s not driving anything. For most people they’re a curiosity.
Microsoft, Intel, Dell and other vendors are driving the PC market.
Really? Microsoft are driving the PC market? Did I miss the launch of a Microsoft operating system since 2001? Thought not.
Plug-and-play? Apple had it first. Widespread deployment of USB as an expansion bus? Sorry to say it, but it was a dormant technology until the iMac came out. ZeroConf? 802.11g in laptops? Firewire? Finally adopted as part of the PC specification for Vista systems, Apple systems have sported FireWire for the best part of a decade.
And if Dell are driving the PC market, I’m George Clooney’s better-looking brother: a bunch of cheapskate bait-and-switch merchants whose equipment sets new lows for ergonomics and build quality. I’d rather buy Fujitsu-Siemens or even Samsung, the former has some solidity and the latter is cost-competitive.
Seriously, if you’re going to be a deluded Windows fanboy, at least come up with some valid arguments.
I had to comment on this, ‘cuz it gived me the giggles:
I didn’t say nobody would care, just hardly anybody except Mac Aficionados.
Translation: “Nobody would care, except those that would.”
Way to make a point, moron.
“Plug-and-play? Apple had it first. Widespread deployment of USB as an expansion bus? Sorry to say it, but it was a dormant technology until the iMac came out. ZeroConf? 802.11g in laptops? Firewire? Finally adopted as part of the PC specification for Vista systems, Apple systems have sported FireWire for the best part of a decade.”
Lets not rest on past laurels. I asked for this year.
And packaging somebody else’s technology doesn’t count, because that’s exactly what you’re accusing Dell of.
But anyway, to dismiss your list:
NuBUS: MIT developed NuBus, Texas Instruments did further work on it. The first “Apple” plug and play bus is NOT and Apple invention. That falls into that category of pretending they invented it. After PCI was introduced they saw the light and went with industry standard PCI.
USB: Did Apple invent that? Nope, again you’re pretending Apple invented it.
802.11g: YOu can’t be serious thinking Apple invented 802.11g? But if you were, you’d be pretending too.
Firewire: OK, that IS something Apple invented. Not this year though, in fact a VERY long time ago by PC standards. and it really doesn’t fall into the “life changing” category.
So can anybody tell me some life changing innovation that Apple Invented This Year?
=== Hairy Gorrilla said: ===
“After all they are salespeople and salespeople work on commission.”
==================
Apple store employees (“Mac Specialists”) do not work on commission, period.
The individual’s ability to successfully demonstrate the various benefits of AppleCare, ProCare and .Mac to the Mac or iPod customer is tracked (and the only real method of determining this is via sales figures – otherwise they’d need to do polls), but that is nothing like a commission situation.
Mac Specialists, I daresay, don’t even “want” you to buy a Mac so much as (worst case) leave the store well-informed and excited about the Mac, all myths dispelled. (That’s not to say there aren’t over-eager sales-minded individuals out there).
Mac Specialist are not motivated by the same things as, say, Best Buy or CompUSA’s pimply face salespeople are. They aren’t foisting off the remainders or overstock and touting them as the best thing going while lying through there GoGurt stained teeth.
“their GoGurt-stained teeth”
bite me, grammarpedants
Translation: “Nobody would care, except those that would.”
Not exactly. It means there’s a very small group of rabid Mac fans who would care, the ones who feel unhappy about the demise of the PPC, the ones who really like OS X.
Most Mac users are very comfortable with change in their underlying platform. They have to be if they have used a Mac for any period of time. They would just switch to Windows and get on with life.
“Nobody would care … ”
Except for the millions of individuals and the hundreds of corporations touched by Apple via the iTunes/iTunes Music Store/iPod machine.
You are being intractable in your effort to (attempt to) make a point.
SteveJackIsOnSpaceCookies is confusing us.
First he demands examples from last year [12:09], then this year [12:55].
[Tell me one life changing thing that Apple invented last year./So can anybody tell me some life changing innovation that Apple Invented This Year?]
He then flat out dismisses all examples, including FireWire. [FWIW, we understand that FW is from neither year.]
But Gosh, if FW isn’t “life changing”, give us an example — in your OPINION — what is “life changing”. Please don’t include getting frame-rates up on your DOOM rig.
Perhaps if you would use an example of what DELL has innovated — since Jan 1, 2005 — to clarify your query. That would enable us to be more accurate in our reply. Thx.
Dell was a pretty good hardware vendor back in 1996. I highly recommended them and purchased them for my work. They were above average in price but were very reliable. Then they decided to go after Gateway (I believe they tried to run Gateway out of business) by starting a price war. Now there is such little profit margin on their PC’s, any downturn in their sales hurts them. And their quality has gone downhill. I wouldn’t recommend Dell to my enemies.
“It means there’s a very small group of rabid Mac fans who would care, the ones who feel unhappy about the demise of the PPC, the ones who really like OS X.”
Okay, fair enough.
Now which do you think is a smaller group–“rabid Mac fans” or “rabid Dell fans”? Because with 30% of the US Market, there must be tons of rabid Dell fans out there, right?
As has been said, Dell offers a low price and not much else. If Dell disappeared tomorrow, HP would step in and take their place. The companies are interchangeable and nobody cares.
===
“Now which do you think is a smaller group–“rabid Mac fans” or “rabid Dell fans”? Because with 30% of the US Market, there must be tons of rabid Dell fans out there, right?”
===
Groan.
You obviously need to go back to school and pay attention to the statistics class this time…