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
“but I can’t run Mac OS, so – as a computing Swiss Army Knife – the Macintosh wins again.”
As you rightly state all the other things except Mac OS X can be done on a Windows box, and somebody supplies equivalents of all the technologies you mention for WinTel PCs.
You’re premising this “Swiss army knifeness” on a NEED to run Mac OS for something. Which I thought we had established does not exist.
You seem to be zeroing in on Windows boxes, and Microsoft software but the original point was that if Apple disappear, people could migrate to technology from SOMEONE else which would suit their needs.
@ SteveJack >
I’ll ask you a question here, because – to be frank – I can’t be bothered to look.
I’ve looked at Sonic’s site and I can see consumer level tools which allow me to play with DV and make DVDs, but I can’t find a consumer level (under $100) tool that allows me to do the same thing for HDV without going to a professional product. And the same applies to Adobe.
So, where is the consumer-level tool from any Windows ISV (or Microsoft itself) that allows for the import and editing of HDV and then a subsequent export to either HD-DVD or BluRay. The reason I ask is that iLife 06 can do this now and is merely awaiting the arrival of HD drives and media (you can still save the HD image on a hard drive and open it in DVD Player). If you can answer this question for less than $100.00 for up to five machines, you can live to fight another day and I’ll go and find another argument.
SteveJack I’m gonna drug you and rape you and dump your body, just like me and my boyfriend did to my sister and all those other bitches.
SteveJack: Excellent, lets get this straight. If iLife disappeared tomorrow you can’t think of a single way to get the same jobs done?
[Sigh] Your inability to read is getting tiring. Plus, you keep changing the criteria. Now it’s just “a single way”, rather than how much EASIER it is on a Mac. But anyway, my answer again:
“Perfectly acceptable” is somehow equal to an award-winning suite of applications renowned for their ease of use?
Again, you’ve never used a Mac. You’ve merely read about them or heard tales from other non-Mac-using PC users.
Best of luck to you.
“Ok, specifics please. What can you do with your Mac that you can’t do with a PC.”
Ummmm, many examples have been listed. You just don’t want to acknowledge them.
Here’s one from up there:
“As one example, color correction, matching, and consistency (crusial to effective Photoshop use) are much, much harder to achieve (some say nearly impossible) on a PC than on a Mac. That’s not a subjective datapoint.”
Now, please SteveJackIsOnSpaceCookies, IGNORE IT like you’ve done with all the rest!!!!
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“one word: VISTA”
News Flash: Most Windows XP users are not sitting around wishing they had Vista. It’ll get here when it gets here and won’t change our lives.
“it has not one single unique selling proposition”
Again that fixation with a company having to have a “unique product” to survive. What is unique about Dell is their execution.
“Which is a unique selling proposition. If you don’t understand that concept, go take Marketing 101”
If you had any marketing in your background you’d understand that the product is only one part of the mix.
“If Dell are so good at what they do, why is their market value sliding so precipitously.”
To get into that with you would be like trying to pour a quart into a pint jug. Suffice to say those that just look at instantaneous market cap when valuing stocks are not very smart.
“BTW, coming from a country where George W Bush can be President”
Trust me, we laugh at him where I’m from too. The funny thing is that your Prime Minister and transitively your whole country are his bitches.
Which I thought we had established does not exist.
No, I think you’ll find you’re still making a case. As a previous respondent said, Photoshop is still better on a Mac than on a PC, and I’m relatively certain that if you’re using Shake, Windows isn’t an option.
BTW, from what I can tell, in the world of bioinformatics, the Macintosh appears to be a popular platform with many of the vendors producing Mac-only software, so I’m pretty certain that there are a whole sub-culture who woudn’t agree with your premise.
And just to round off, before I go and make dinner, a conversation with a former colleague has confirmed a rumour that I heard about a former client. Having paid a fortune – post -Windows migration – to customise and implement a Windows-based replacement for their specialist core sampling and analysis program, they ultimately had to return to the Macintosh for that app because the Windows solution was simply too unreliable and they were occasionally losing days of data.
So maybe you’re wrong about it being so easy to replace a Mac with Windows.
“As one example, color correction, matching, and consistency (crusial to effective Photoshop use) are much, much harder to achieve (some say nearly impossible) on a PC than on a Mac. That’s not a subjective datapoint.”
1) Most people don’t care.
2) For those that do, go buy one of Colorvision’s products, unless you have some exacting requirements, they’ll work just fine.
“rather than how much EASIER it is on a “
Assume for a minute I mean in all cases it’s as easy, that’s just implied by the fact that something’s an acceptable substitute.
“bioinformatics” – Linux.
“core sampling and analysis program,”
And CAD/CAM isn’t mainstream…. Shesh.
Probably employed British software engineers.
SteveTool >
It’s not instantaneous, it’s a fucking 15-month observation. So don’t be a twat. And if I wanted to go further and compare Dell to Apple, IBM and HP as far back as nine years ago, Apple would still be the better investment.
Execution is not a USP. The only unique they had was delivering a BTO product at a competitive price, Now they don’t. Apple does it. HP does it. Their customer care sucks which completely negates the price advantage. Or are you going to say that customer care doesn’t matter. Or selling a product that spontaneously turns into a barbecue is a good thing.
In my twenties, I worked for a marketing services agency so I’m pretty clear on what constitutes a USP. Dell’s USP was price and configuration. Now it’s just price and that’s not a defensible position.
And just to clarify: if Vista won’t be a paradigm-shifting, life-enhancing experience and people aren’t sitting there on the edge of their seat, then Dell, HP et al are in even worse shape than we imagine given that they’re relying on it to kick start a new wave of PC purchasing. So, your position is – by implication – that if hundreds of millions ditch their old Windows XP boxes for Vista or even just pay for the upgrade, they’re paying several hundred bucks for something with no appeal which surely makes Windows customers idiots, which would explain why they’re too incompetent to configure the security for their own machines.
Hey, everybody, let’s just ignore this SteveJack fellow…. he’s just a time waster. He twists his arguments to win a point, his facts are wrong, and he’s just sooo fanatically in love with Windows… and he just keeps posting reply after useless reply.
Reminds me of those nuisance pop-up windows viruses you get on a PC, everytime you close one another one pops up.
The only solution is to shut down. Let’s just ignore him and move on. (He’ll probably reply to this too… he just can’t stand to lose and argument! But too bad I’m not going to reply.)
Your argument mate.
If you think it’s difficult making things without CNC control, it’s even harder without oil or gas.
Actually, its probably not the fact that they were British programmers as much as the fact that they were being asked to work with a sub-standard platform. Maybe working with Windows makes you stupid. Maybe that’s why people don’t seem to be able to configure their security properly.
But if the fault is with a British programming team, how does that explain why Vista, with an American programming team of several thousand and with the cream of American management (or Dances with Monkeys, as I prefer to call it) will be four years late whilst Apple will deliver its fourth major OS upgrade since August 2002 using a team of only around three hundred developers.
The only common link is Windows: shout it from the rooftops, Windows can adversely affect your intelligence.
Hmmm, it all makes sense now.
“If you think it’s difficult making things without CNC control, it’s even harder without oil or gas.”
Not Exactly, not everybody would be affected because only the dumbasses who built that software for a Mac platform in the first place would be affected. Those already running their custom apps on other Unix systems or Windows would be just fine.
But most CAD/CAM work is not done on Apples, nor could it be.
“fourth major OS upgrade”
Tweak a few apps, add a few little features, few minor changes here and there, here’s an OS upgrade. Sure. Amazing what passes for a “major” upgrade these days.
“It’s not instantaneous, it’s a fucking 15-month observation. So don’t be a twat.”
Even over 15 months, the wrong thing to be looking at.
“he just can’t stand to lose and argument! “
You have no argument in what you posted, just a bunch of statements that the posts don’t bear out.
what’s to loose, You’re not making an argument for anything.
Yep I love Windows because I couldn’t care less if Microsoft releases Vista or not and don’t think it’ll change my life one way or another, and Love Dell because I couldn’t care less whether they vanish or not.
The most useless reply posted so far is yours. It adds nothing. Absolutely nothing to the discussion.
So, Steve have you found that consumer-level HDV product for Windows yet?
Chop, chop, times-a-wasting.
You haven’t got the time to hang around here, when you should be demonstrating your point.
I wouldn’t mind, but I asked over an hour ago and you still haven’t responded – I might have to get my next customer a Mac because you can’t deliver.
Remember: HDV in, HD out, five legitimate copies for $100, has to have a photo management tool as an equivalent of iPhoto and a GarageBand equivalent. I’ll ignore iWeb as I don’t want to make it difficult for you. I was under the impression this was easy.
BTW, your impression of what constitutes a major OS upgrade is a bit self-defeating.
Your team have been working since the turn of the Millenium and, according to you, will still deliver something insipid and uninspiring and charge a couple of hundred dollars for it. Still, that’s American software developers for you.
“Your team have been working “
When did I say they were “My Team”
My point is that most people can replace a Mac with a PC and not really notice the difference, not that Microsoft is Wonderful.
But in any case, many of the things which are part of “Major OS Upgrades” for Apple have been released as “Free Updates” for Windows. So who’s bending who over on the money side?
Steve >
Lame response – particularly as you can’t prove one single word of it.
You’ve had two hours now to come up with my HDV capable consumer-level video editing software and your wasting your time and mine. Now get along and do some research or I’ll have to claim that you’re an asshat who doesn’t have the commitment to follow an argument.
Like I said, chop-chop.
BTW, I’m amending my brief as I’d like my consumer-level digital lifetstyle suite to be scriptable, either manually using something like AppleScript or using a “point-and-click” programming interface (something like Automator). That shouldn’t be too hard now, should it given that Windows is such a great product with so many thousands of applications (even though 80% of them are shit and 10% of them are games).
Now do hurry up or your friends in the Windows fan-boy community won’t allow to keep playing with them…
Oh, and I’m assuming that the patent application I pointed you to at 9:34am was sufficiently innovative and life-changing for you, given that you’re obviously the arbiter of what is innovative and life-changing and you haven’t posted a smart-ass response in the last seven hours.
“You’ve had two hours now to come up with my HDV capable consumer-level video editing software”
Because if we start arguing features of video editing products, we’ll move away from the main question.
Go ahead. Start the debate. I’ll provide some opening lines
iMovie is better than Avid because… (fill in the blank)
iMovie kicks Premiere’s butt because…. (fill in the blank)
Fact is if Apple vanished, between Adobe, Uled, Avid, Microsoft, Sony and others, between their high end products and low end products, depending on just how serious people are about your desktop video, they’d find something to suit their needs and get on with life.
The work being done by others with direct brain interfaces would seem to have much more potential.
A touchscreen you don’t have to actually touch…. Wow… We had those a few decades ago.
So, we agree that you can’t find an integrated consumer-level digital lifestyle suite that has a scriptable interface and HDV support (in) and HD support (out) at $100 for a five-user Family Pack under Windows XP, so – on that basis – it turns out that iLife is quite difficult to replace as you would have to purchase a separate video editing suite, a DVD creation suite, a photo management package and an audio tool that could produce straight music, soundtracks or podcasts which would probably cost around $500+ and if you want a family pack will probably edge closer to $1000.00
You couldn’t match the integration between the apps
You couldn’t match the features of the apps
You couldn’t match the pricing
So I think the first time you got called by a domestic Mac user wanting to switch to Windows, you’d fail because you’d want him to spend a minimum of $500 on top of his machine.
That’s it, job done, goodnight Vienna.
As for your other point on direct brain interfaces, you truly are a fully functioning idiot. We’re talking 2006, not 2026.
Don’t bother responding, you’re not worth my time or my intellect.
“That’s it, job done, goodnight Vienna.”
The job definition was to find a substitute for iMovie.
And I identified many free or cheap options, almost all vendors of which have a product which costs less than iMovie and some much more sophisticated ones.
So yes Job done.
You’re the one who started adding conditions like must be written by a lesbian black woman with a wooden leg and run on a Mac. i.e a spec so specifically tailored to iMovie.
Anyway, the real question was can you replace a PC with a Mac and provide users with the same functionality, which clearly, given that we can replace iMovie we can.
Anyway that’s the British for you. Not the smartest race.
“As for your other point on direct brain interfaces, you truly are a fully functioning idiot. We’re talking 2006, not 2026.”
Working systems exist today. They seem much more appropriate to the needs of people with disabilities than 20 year old touch screen technology. I doubt they’ll take until 2026 to fully commercialise.
Or what, you didn’t realise such systems actually exist today? I guess it’ll take until Steve Jobs launches it on a Mac, then claims he invented it for you to notice?
No, the job definition – because you’re obviously reading impaired was…
Remember: HDV in, HD out, five legitimate copies for $100, has to have a photo management tool as an equivalent of iPhoto and a GarageBand equivalent. I’ll ignore iWeb as I don’t want to make it difficult for you. I was under the impression this was easy. See my post at 3:19pm. That’s the Americans for you, unable to read understand simple sentences – never the brightest of races, and never appropriately dressed.
BTW, the point of this touch screen is that you don’t touch it. So it’s not a touch screen. And I don’t think that’s been around for 20 years, but obviously you know better because your Dad works at Area 51 and he let you go to work with him and you met an alien and he wasn’t anything like ET, because his name was Gerald.
As for commercialising brain interfaces before 2026, good luck with that. Personally, nobody’s going to stick anything near or on my brain without feeding me a whole bottle of Tequila, whereas I suspect that most people can deal with a touchscreen that accepts gestures, but it works especially well for people with sensory issues (like white finger) or arthritis.
But trust a Windows fanboy to try and over engineer a solution.
“Remember: HDV in, HD out, five legitimate copies for $100, has to have a photo management tool as an equivalent of iPhoto and a GarageBand equivalent. I’ll ignore iWeb as I don’t want to make it difficult for you. I was under the impression this was easy”
Your extra criteria not mine. I’m a happy with a product which costs less and does the same job.
“point of this touch screen is that you don’t touch it. So it’s not a touch screen.”
Actually it is, with an IR proximity sensor. That’s hardly revolutionary or alien spacecraft technology. As I said, the basic technology is over 20 years old. Amazing what you can patent these days.
“Personally, nobody’s going to stick anything near or on my brain without feeding me a whole bottle of Tequila, “
In your case I doubt if there would be much signal to pick up. But done worry, Much like the small sized Condoms which get shipped to the UK, there will likely be a small sized brain sensor as well.
As you no doubt know, one of the technologies is a non intrusive Cap. Im sure you’re just playing with me pretending that you don’t know that.