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
Fail to see your point – if there is one.
It is a valid question, but you obviously can’t give an answer.
I’d like to know if there are more rabid DELL fans, than Mac fans.
But, please do your best Charlie Epps schpiele. Or is that Charlie Babbitt? (You don’t seem to mind the name-calling)
@ SteveJack…blah
What does your village do for an idiot when you go on holiday?
Did I at any point state that any of these things were Apple inventions? NO!
My point was that they were examples of Apple either being the first to use a technology in a commercially available product (eg. NuBus – btw, a bus without a computer is as much use as a bicycle is to a fish, nobody ever went into Fry’s or PC World and said “Excuse me, have you got any buses ?”, but also see PostScript for another example) or taking a technology which was languishing in a miasma of general apathy (see USB).
I can pick any year in the last five to ten years and find an example of Apple pushing the marketplace, whereas Dell can only ever do what Microsoft and AMD/Intel allow them to do which since the launch of Windows XP back in 2001 is pretty much 10% of bugger all.
So can anybody tell me some life changing innovation that Apple Invented This Year?
BTW, the answer is probably Yes if you can wait until August 7.
In return, you’ve got to show me something that Dell or Microsoft have invented this year.
So……….. where the hell is the MacRealist?
Last couple of days must have him eating shit and dying!
MDN word: hospital —– God I love it there’s too many ways to go.
“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.”
I already agreed with that point, a long time ago. So can we stop trying to argue that one.
But unfortunately Apple is the same, for most uses they’re interchangeable, nobody would care.
“Merely because a system has the same processor, I/O, graphics etc. does not make it a PC clone”
Actually that’s exactly what makes it a PC clone.
“Except for the millions of individuals and the hundreds of corporations touched by Apple via the iTunes/iTunes Music Store/iPod machine.”
You could make the same point for the much larger group of Dell customers, but the point is, even with iTunes, people would just switch to something else and carry on with life. iTunes certainly isn’t unique technology, or even anywhere near the most popular way people get music for their iPods. People would just buy other MP3 players. Like today people would continue to rip CDs, download “free” music and occasionally buy music from other online music stores.
“Did I at any point state that any of these things were Apple inventions? NO!”
Thanks, so you concede that Apple, like Dell just uses other people’s inventions. Good. We’re making progress. Therefore people would care if the people actually inventing things went away, but not actually care if Apple went away.
“ever went into Fry’s or PC World and said “Excuse me, have you got any buses ?”, “
Yes, back in the old days I might have gone into Fry’s (Had they existed then) and said, give me an S100 Bus backplane. Then gone and got one of the many compatible computer CPU boards to plug into it. I guess that’s about as close as you could come to “Buying a Bus”. Probably before your time. Also TI did market machines using NuBus, so they could have brought those too.
“In return, you’ve got to show me something that Dell or Microsoft have invented this year.”
WHY WHY WHY. I already said that Dell doesn’t invent much. They just efficiently build and sell stuff. You’re still trying to argue points I already stated myself..
“PostScript for another example”
Now people would care if Adobe, the people who actually invented Postscript vanished. Then they’d have no Photoshop for Windows to buy after Apple vanished and they switched to Windows and got on with life.
“BTW, the answer is probably Yes if you can wait until August 7.”
Sure I can wait, but are we just going to see something that somebody else invented first now used by Apple or something that Apple actually invented? So far the only thing anyone’s mentioned that Apple invented is Firewire…
“What does your village do for an idiot when you go on holiday?”
When they needed a village Idiot, they looked for the smartest “Genius” from an Apple retail store then trained him up a bit. He has his good days and bad days. Sometimes he gets the drooling right, sometimes not. Most of the time he just bangs his head on things and says “PC Bad, Mac Good”. When asked why, he just bites people and runs in circles saying wibble. Much like some people in this forum actually.
The statement by MDN was . . .
“If Dell ceased to exist today [ . . . ] nobody outside the company would care. Another Windows box assembler would simply slide into place and the mediocrity would continue unabated.”
MDN’s comments related to the ease and lack of specialness that are part and parcel of the PC computing experience — precisely because the parts, pieces and operating system are available from multiple sources. Dell is virtually indistinguishable as a commodity box maker from any other commodity box maker . . . aside from the logo, that is.
It’s YOU who tried to turn the statement around by writing . . .
“The others would take their [Apple’s] share and life would go on.”
Neither MDN nor anyone else ever claimed that the entire computing world would implode if Apple went away tomorrow. They simply stated that the small gurgling of Dell fading from the scene wouldn’t amount to much in comparison to the seismic tremors of Apple ceasing to exist. Of COURSE no one company is an island, but that’s where you’re missing the point . . . I think purposely.
The list of the myriad ways in which Apple impacts people on a rarified level is far, far greater than what one can say about Dell. Dell does nothing except put together commodity parts in standard configurations on which people can run Windows. Those are all things that can be done by — or obtained from — a significant number of other companies.
And of course the iTunes/iTMS/iPod combination would eventually be replaced by something else if Apple went away tomorrow. It will eventually be replaced by something else anyway. The point is that millions of people would be affected in a big way tomorrow — far more than anyone would if Dell closed up shop tomorrow!. An HP is a Dell is a Sony is a Compaq is a [insert box maker here]. The Apple paradigm and the manner in which their tentacles reach into multiple facets of people’s lives is far more impactful than that of a commodity box assembler selling stock parts and another company’s operating system.
But perhaps the most laughable part of your statements is your attempt to lend credibility to your claim by using specious and wildly vague language such as . . .
” . . . a few Mac afficionados.”
. . . conveniently forgetting the millions of people amongst schools, colleges, design firms, artists, educators, musicians, laboratories, supercomputer clusters, printers, service bureaus, prepress houses, hotels, and small business owners that use a computer and an operating system produced only by Apple.
Eighteen to 20 million OS X users and 25 to 30 million Mac users is hardly “a few”.
Your oversimplification of the issue and concurrent parsing of others’ words is hardly worthy of a gentlemanly debate.
“Neither MDN nor anyone else ever claimed that the entire computing world would implode if Apple went away tomorrow. “
Nor am I claiming that, quite the reverse. My whole point was that what went for Dell went equally well for Apple.
“Dell does nothing except put together commodity parts in standard configurations on which people can run Windows.”
Again, how many times must we belabor that point, it’s true, people would just buy other PCs.
” manner in which their tentacles reach into multiple facets of people’s lives is far more impactful than that of a commodity box assembler selling stock parts”
I’m not sure I like the idea of tentacles reaching into my life. Tell me how to recognise the problem. If the problem is that I own an iPod and I’d have to buy my next iPod like device from someone else, how much of a problem is that?
You’d be surprised how many things in your life depend on Dell too.
But nevertheless the point is if either went away tomorrow, people would adapt and adapt fairly easily.
“use a computer and an operating system produced only by Apple.”
Yet the functions they use them for can easily be done on a PC or other type of computer. Most of those millions would just buy another computer next time and get on with life.
Taking it a step further, an overnight effect:
If all Windows PCs in the world vanished, and all copies of Windows with them (Including servers and those running on Macs and linux boxes), then life as you know it would stop because a Mac is not a complete replacement for a PC. PCs are just too embedded in the fabric of your daily life.
If all Macs in the world vanished, there would be a blip in PC sales as people replaced systems and got on with life, nothing more.
“seismic tremors of Apple ceasing to exist”
Yes, and like the 20,000 seismic tremors occurring each year in California, most of those tremors would not be noticed.
Dude, Apple’s absence would be noticed way more than Dell’s. Sure everyone would adapt, that’s life, but Wall Street and iPod users and even the media would feel a big loss for quite awhile longer than if they suddenly lost Dell and their Dell Dimension XZV5800-TL or whatever.
Get real.
Too many space cookies.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”LOL” style=”border:0;” />
Thanks, so you concede that Apple, like Dell just uses other people’s inventions. Good. We’re making progress. Therefore people would care if the people actually inventing things went away, but not actually care if Apple went away.
Blessed with selective reading, aren’t we.
Seeing as I’d never put forward an argument that Apple were responsible for the invention, I can hardly be conceding a point that was never on the table in the first place: still I can understand your need to shore up your insecurity by claiming a victory on an argument that never existed.
Yes, back in the old days I might have gone into Fry’s (Had they existed then) and said, give me an S100 Bus backplane. Then gone and got one of the many compatible computer CPU boards to plug into it. I guess that’s about as close as you could come to “Buying a Bus”. Probably before your time. Also TI did market machines using NuBus, so they could have brought those too.
Actually, I’m 43 so I remember the early hobbyist days quite well thanks very much, so here’s a question? Can an expansion bus achieve anything without a computer? And now the next question is can a computer exist without an expansion bus?
Your argument here appears to be that Apple didn’t popularise NuBus, it was TI or it could have been TI and Apple were inconsequential. This is – with no respect whatsoever – horse shit. TI made great oscillosopes, and some calculators but they have never been a mass manufacturer of personal computers and never had the consumer marketing skills or any grip on the zeitgeist of that market.
Actually that’s exactly what makes it a PC clone.
Again, horse shit – a current ‘industry-standard architecture’ PC ‘clone’ (in the original Compaq sense of the word) would require BIOS to run Windows XP, and the Intel-powered Macintoshes’ EFI excludes them from that. Now – just so you’re clear – I’m not claiming that Apple invented EFI, but (yet again) Apple are the manufacturer who are saying “to Hell with the past, let’s create integrated hardware/software platforms that can operate as well in people’s homes or a biotech lab or a supercomputing grid”.
And its that culture and capability that makes Apple unique. If they want to build grid computing into the OS, they do it. If they want to implement Zero Configuration networking into the OS (which they did in August 2002, with Jaguar) they do it. If they decide that the floppy-disk has had its day, they take it out of the platform.
Dell will never have that degree of courage or imagination. The only way they ‘push’ the market is by using their purchasing power to create a teardown cost that is as low as possible. On that basis, the most important people at Dell are the purchasing department and – now that the Chinese are in town to take their lunch money – that’s not a company that Wall Street seems to particularly care for very much.
Put it another way: any fucking idiot with a good eye for a deal and no care or concern for the concept of customer care can build a Dell Corporation clone. Whereas, it takes a sense of vision to build a company that has some solid future value.
The figures don’t lie: Dell’s worth 43% of what it was worth in March 05, and Apple is worth 50% more. Even more tellingly, Microsoft has – in the last 24 hours – decided to start returning money to shareholders in vast quantities, which says a) says something about their need to make their shares more attractive and b) says that they really have no productive or imaginative vision for how to use that money in any other way.
WHY WHY WHY. I already said that Dell doesn’t invent much
I’ll tell you why – because you said earlier
Microsoft, Intel, Dell and other vendors are driving the PC market
which was a stupid comment when you thought it, but then you decided to kick it into another class of stupidity when you typed it on a keyboard.
“Wall Street and iPod users and even the media would feel a big loss for quite awhile longer “
Not really, tell me something Apple does that’s so unique that there’s not a close acceptable substitute.
Yet the functions they use them for can easily be done on a PC or other type of computer. Most of those millions would just buy another computer next time and get on with life.
Taking it a step further, an overnight effect:
If all Windows PCs in the world vanished, and all copies of Windows with them (Including servers and those running on Macs and linux boxes), then life as you know it would stop because a Mac is not a complete replacement for a PC. PCs are just too embedded in the fabric of your daily life.
If all Macs in the world vanished, there would be a blip in PC sales as people replaced systems and got on with life, nothing more.
And as for this steaming pile of crap, you really need to have a think about what you’re saying.
Given that most business apps for major corporates are still running on mainframes or high-end Unix and OS/400-type systems, those Windows systems could disappear tomorrow and all that would have to happen is that someone would have to rewrite the screen scraper apps. The real difference is that a whole world full of people would discover that they’d been using a second-rate quarter-assed knock-off of the Macintosh. And they’d have to stop playing Solitaire and get on with some real work.
“which was a stupid comment when you thought it,”
Why, counterexample please. How is Apple a more important player than say Microsoft or Intel? Who’s better at getting Microsoft and Intel’s developments to customers than Dell?
And in that scenario, Apple is somehow the secret force driving these guys along? Please… That’s too amusing.
“BIOS to run Windows XP, and the Intel-powered Macintoshes’ EFI excludes them from that”
And boot camp works around that. Fundamentally the latest Mac is architecturally a standard PC clone. It walks like a Duck, it quacks like a Duck… Rewrite the firmware, it is a Duck….
“Put it another way: any fucking idiot with a good eye for a deal and no care or concern for the concept of customer care can build a Dell Corporation clone.”
Yet strangely enough, despite the billions at stake if you succeed, nobody has. The only implication from that is that it can’t be as easy as you think.
” b) says that they really have no productive or imaginative vision for how to use that money in any other way.”
The answer is they throw off so much cash that they can do all the R&D they want to and still have a mountain of it left. You’re right. They have so much cash they don’t know what to do with it. In that case good corporate governance says give it back.
“Your argument here appears to be that Apple didn’t popularise NuBus,”
No my argument is that somebody else invented the technology and Apple just used it and sold it. No innovation at Apple, just use of technology that someone else invented. Just like Dell taking and using many technologies which other people invent.
Not really, tell me something Apple does that’s so unique that there’s not a close acceptable substitute.
Not “does that’s so unique”. Rather, does so WELL!
For instance, keeps the media guessing and makes for great news stories.
And provides an awesome user experience for iPod and iTunes users with their iTunes/iTunes Music Store/iPod combination — something that no one else has. Certainly not in any form anywhere near as seamless and user-friendly.
“Given that most business apps for major corporates are still running on mainframes or high-end Unix and OS/400-type systems, those Windows systems could disappear tomorrow and all that would have to happen is that someone would have to rewrite the screen scraper apps. The real difference is that a whole world full of people would discover that they’d been using a second-rate quarter-assed knock-off of the Macintosh. And they’d have to stop playing Solitaire and get on with some real work.”
I think you misunderstand just how many people have migrated apps to Windows servers, just how many business critical apps sit on Windows servers, just how much critical data sits there, and just how many corporate apps and tools that use that data run only under Windows.
There’s not a modern corporation that could function if it’s Windows systems disappeared.
“iPod and iTunes users with their iTunes/iTunes Music Store/iPod combination — something that no one else has. Certainly not in any form anywhere near as seamless and user-friendly.”
But hardly a “mission critical” app for anyone. If Every iPod on the planet transmogrifies into a Zune player tomorrow. What’s the real impact?
SteveJackIsOnSpaceCookies’ whole line of thinking wreaks of Joe McConnell.
Haven’t you got that Mac mini, yet?
“Not really, tell me something Apple does that’s so unique … ”
Loyalty.
The ironic thing is that what Dell has been pushing (cheap! cheap! and generic) has finally bitten him in the buttocks. If you sell your product that way, you command no loyalty from customers, as they’ll just use something else that’s cheaper, since it’s all the same Windows box, right? Meanwhile, Apple was selling distinctive products. Sure, they were more expensive, but with that price came quality and loyalty. By selling the cheapest PCs around, Dell had lots of customers, but no admirers, and when the price isn’t as good as it was, then their customers find a new supplier. Life’s rough in low-end PCs, which is why successful companies don’t stay there. Look at the automotive market for a primer, Mr. Dell.
SteveJack…: “But hardly a “mission critical” app for anyone.”
Nice try at a save there, buddy. But the “But” gives away the failure of your argument.
You lose.
Hairy Gorrilla: you said “apple store employees are actively selling MacTels to customers with the intention they go home and install Windows.
After all they are salespeople and salespeople work on commission.”
BUT: the truth is, (sinse I work for Apple in one of their stores), we don’t work on commission, and we usually let them know in a polite way how crappy windows is, but should they need to run some of their existing software, then we teach them about Parallels, as a safer way to run windows, which is better than boot camp. Also, we let people know about Codeweaver’s Wine project coming out soon, which will let you run windows apps in Mac OS X, WITHOUT the need for windows or a virtual environment.
“Nice try at a save there, buddy. But the “But” gives away the failure of your argument.”
The argument is that perfectly acceptable alternatives to the iPod exist that would be taken up if no more iPods were made.
The But is that the iPod is a special case. Even if no such alternatives existed no major harm would be done to anything if Apple stopped producing them.
“Loyalty.”
We’re talking about products which have substitutes.
If Apple went away nobody needs to replace their “Loyalty” when it gets broken, or can’t get work done because their new “Loyalty” doesn’t have all the features of their old “Loyalty”.
They’ll be sad Apple’s gone for sure, but pick up the next product off the shelf which does the same job for them and get on with their lives.
Wellsome Apple customers will find that they do have an irrational need to become loyal to something.
@ SteveJack…blah
Let’s compare my experience with yours: Before I decided that life was too short, I’ve project managed the rollout of Windows platforms to well over 10000 seats, including servers and clients in such wonderful places as Azerbaijan, Angola, Algeria, and Kazakhstan for oil, tobacco, finance and insurance companies.
You go into a major financial centre or an oil company and see how many of them trust their mission-critical apps to MSFT platforms and how many still keep them on AIX, Solaris or OS/400. I know Microsoft’s propaganda would like you to believe that the business world has decided that Windows Server 2003 Datacenter combined with SQL Server has taken the world by storm, but the truth is that it hasn’t
The simple fact of the matter is that – even with something as simple as web servers and persistant data stores – more companies would rather rely on Linux and MySQL than on Windows Server, ASP and the whole discredited Microsoft ball of wax.
“Look at the automotive market for a primer, Mr. Dell.”
You can’t be serious. All major manufacturers have brand offerings which cover the whole range, and you can bet they sell a lot more products in their cheap brands compared to their luxury ones.
“Life’s rough in low-end PCs, which is why successful companies don’t stay there”
Sure life’s tough in a commodity market, but the facts don’t support that companies are moving out of the low end. All PC companies with any significant market share have low end offerings, (as well as midrange and high end ones) and have been doing it for years.
“rollout of Windows platforms to well over 10000 seats”
Clearly a trivial process which didn’t need much planning, since you can replace them all tomorrow with Macs.
You’re my hero. The world’s greatest IT Project Manager.
Go to Redmond, offer to tell them what you know. Your knowledge is worth Billions.
I didn’t say those other pieces don’t exist, only that when you remove all the Windows pieces in the solution, you end up with a non functioning company.
Just what do you think would happen to those systems you implemented if all 10000 PCs disappeared overnight?
As you were responding to my question, you seem to be saying there wouldn’t be chaos. Somehow I don’t find that to be credible.