“What, did I fall into a time machine back to 1997? You know those days when Apple was the computer industry’s hard luck case, and when the triumvirate of Microsoft, Intel and Dell were on their way to conquering the world? Well that was nine years ago, and if Apple’s earnings report plus a few other industry indicators didn’t suggest that times have changed a great deal then you’re just not paying attention,” Arik Hesseldahl blogs for BusinessWeek.
Hesseldahl blogs, “To sum up: Apple’s now a nearly $20 billion company on an annual sales basis; It sold 5.3 million Macs worldwide, and in the U.S. market is now within less than 40,000 units of overtaking Gateway as the third largest PC vendor. Meanwhile Hewlett-Packard has eclipsed Dell as the world’s biggest PC vendor, Intel is fighting off a serious competitive threat from rival Advanced Micro Devices, and Microsoft, is still turning out second-rate computer operating systems, and constantly missing delivery date targets on its major upgrades.”
“So what’s to complain about? Well, this. Here we have a report from Gartner, the uber-IT consultant firm, saying that Apple should license the Mac OS to Dell, and stop making hardware,” Hesseldahl blogs. “Yes. Read that one again. My head hurts at all the many things that are wrong with this argument, that I don’t know even where to start. But I’ll do my best.”
“‘Whether Apple’s Steve Jobs would sanction any of the suggestions made by Gartner is hard to gauge,’ the report [states]… Yes, I can think of many “sanctions” that Steve Jobs might have in mind for Gartner report this subject: The first would be putting in the trash where it belongs.”
Full article “What Would We Do Without Analysts?” here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Gartner: Apple should quit hardware business and license Mac OS X to Dell – October 18, 2006
