Total eclipse of Michael Dell happens next Tuesday

Michael Dell plans to give the keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show, where, according to organizers:

“Mr. Dell will describe how customer imagination is the most important driver of innovation, and introduce groundbreaking new products and services.”

Besides the first half of that sentence not making a bit of sense to anyone outside of the Enderle household, er… “Group,” Michael Dell wouldn’t know “innovation” and/or “groundbreaking new products and services” if they walked up behind him and bit him in the ass.

Anyway, get this, Michael Dell plans to bore the audience to tears with his description of “how customer imagination is the most important driver of innovation” or whatever on Tuesday, January 9th at 9am PST; in other words, exactly the same date and time as Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ Macworld Expo 2007 keynote.

There’s nothing quite like seeing the local cover band schedule their first gig across town on the same night and time that Elvis opens for The Beatles, is there?

Good luck with your media coverage there, Mikey.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Investor” for the heads up.]

Related article:
Steve Jobs to deliver keynote address at Macworld Expo San Francisco 2007 on January 9th – October 03, 2006

74 Comments

  1. I think this isn’t by chance. Knowing that he had nothing new to say on innovation, he planned it for a time when noone would be listening….that way, diverting the attention from his incompetence.

  2. Good line, MDN: “There’s nothing quite like seeing the local cover band schedule their first gig across town on the same night and time that Elvis opens for The Beatles, is there?”

    But the local cover band will have its groupies: Enderle, et al.

  3. I think that he’ll delay his keynote by about 5 minutes. That will allow his operatives to see what Steve is introducing at MW, translate it into Dellspeak, transmit it to his receiver, and have him announce his “innovations”. I can see it now: “We are, uh, delivering a new iPod, uh, I mean music player with, uh, video. Yeah, that’s it. And we’re gonna give you iTV, uh, I mean DellTV that will, uh, allow you to, uh, whatever.”

  4. ‘Come on… texas isn’t all bad. Yea, we did offer up Tom Delay and Senior Arbusto, but Austin is kool… 😎

    We just don’t consider ourselves part of Texas, we are “Austin”! (that’s different)

    Charlie

  5. Mike – When a horse throws you off, it’s trying to tell you something. Not only that it is smarter than you, but that you should not operate anything heavier than a pogo stick by yourself.
    I think you might have hit your head harder than anyone thought.

    Folks, this is my favorite rivalry in all of computerdom.

    On the one hand, you have the greasy used-car salesman, doing anything he can to make a deal, all the while trying to stand between you and the giant scratch in the door, going on and on about how much you REALLY NEED the undercoating, and then forgetting your name the minute you leave the lot. He wears a suit from the Men’s Wearhouse markdown bin, a size too large to contain his ever expanding love for donuts. To impress his underlings, he drives a Hummer home from the lot, ever mystified that the women he oggle in traffic don’t seem to be imopressed. And his own car, a beige 1991 Honda Accord (does it GET any more beige?) reeks of pine-tree and Bruit.

    On the other, you’ve got the Euro-slick captain of industry, at once personable and untouchable, leading an army of talent that he can turn on a dime, well before anyone else in the room spots the changing trends. He is fair, if ruthless, and commands respect without ever having to demand it. He’s not always right, but when he’s wrong, it’s because YOU were not ready. He drives a Mercedes SL convertible with a stereo that no one outside of Tokyo has ever heard of. He could afford any Bentley on the road, but he has no need to impress others with something as trivial as monetary wealth. In the garage still sits his beloved VW Beetle, smelling vaguely of intercourse and pot.

    Okay, I’ll stop now… ;P

    -c

    MW: ‘taken’ (way too seriously)

  6. Now, now children, there’s plenty of media attention to go around. There will be more than a few media types hitched to the M$/Dell trough, don’t you worry about that. CES will be well-attended.

    Enderle, Thurrott, G.Ou-…….. they’ll all be there wearing their well-worn kneepads, with bottles of lube in their pockets (just in case of whatever-they all love spontaneity…).

    ChrissyOne seems to be “taken” with Steve Jobs. “In the garage still sits his beloved VW Beetle, smelling vaguely of intercourse and pot.”

    … a little shrine, perhaps, to more innocent times?

    Sounds good to me.

  7. From the linked announcement, I see that Dell will be live streaming Mikey’s presentation.

    I’m willing to bet that Mikey’s streaming video will work better than SJ’s. (and damn everyone else who also wants SJ live online!)

    (For those of you who are a little slow, it’s simialr to the situation, when asked to say somethoing nice about your spouse’s family, you say “Your in-laws are nicer than my in-laws.”)

  8. Michael Dell’s speech as follows… “Here at Dell headquarters, in our labs, we innovated the black casing for our computers and those guys at Apple copied our innovation when they made a black Macbook…the shareholders should demand their money back! We also innovated in our labs our logo placed onto Lexmark printers and we then mass produced this superior logo placement technology. Here at Dell, we innovate, while HP invents, and Apple copies us both. Our DJ innovation brick brought our company so much prestige that we decided to retire it like Apple did their mini. Our stock and market share dropping was just because we wanted to play fair and be a lesser monopolistic third-party hardware conglomerate. Check out our new ads about sewing. Boy that’ll get those ladies on the bandwagon.”

  9. Could it be that this is specifically coordinated for SJ to announce that Apple will incoporate the Vista kernel in Mac OSX and that they will be outsourcing all of Apple’s design & production to Dell?

    After all, this would make a lot of sense since Microsoft wrote the original Mac OS and Apple has been suffering from liability suits due to all those toppling iMacs and the resulting shards of glass….

    Can’t you Mac fanboys see the logic in anything?

  10. I was just thinking…

    What if Microsoft did the math, and realized that it made a lot more sense to concentrate on front- and back-office apps that they mercilessly dominate, and get out of the increasingly difficult and competitive consumer OS business all together?

    How funny would THAT be?

    =)

    I’d want to have a live video feed of Mike’s reaction when they announced it.

    Sure would.

    -c

    MW: ‘complete’ (and utter surprise. were you suprised? I was suprised)

  11. Charlie,

    No, Austin is NOT cool. I’ve been there. I have family there. Hell, I was born there. There is nothing cool about it. It’s just that people there think that the “hippie” contingent is cool, but it’s not. It’s just 60’s hippie “cool”, which ain’t cool. In the same way that those Dell notebooks with blue lighting are not cool. But some people think they are.

  12. The idiots in Austin like to make the dubious claim that Austin is the “live music capital of the world”. What they don’t tell you is that the overwhelming majority of the music you’ll here live there is crap. In the same way that Dell sells more computers than Apple, but the Dells are crap. I’m never impressed with quantity over quality. And you should see the Dell building in Round Rock (suburb of Austin). It’s every bit as boring as you’d expect.

  13. Funny, funny stuff MDN.

    I stopped coming here because the links in the text where just 1 (or 10) advertisements too many. But I swung by to check-in and it’s nice to see you haven’t lost your touch.

    I, like many others, would love to come back more often. But you know when the PC sites all use intelitxt ads, you’re barking down the wrong tree…

    Very funny commentary, nonetheless.

  14. I’ve got the secret script of the Michael Dell speech:

    “We are happy to announce Dell computers with built-in Zune cradles and snap-on plastic highlights that match the plastic color of your Zune. This idea came from our two loyal, Zune-loving customers. Their imagination is the important driver of this innovation.”

    The crowds will roar. The money will start rolling in.

    Everyone will have to have the “Dell — Zune Special Edition” computer.

    Top that, Apple!

  15. The reference to “Mr. Dell” made me laugh a little. “Mr. Dell?”

    Conjures up memories of “Mr. Bill.”

    Oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Mr. Dell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t let that cheap-ass Dell computer catch you on fire, Mr. Dell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Anyone have any playdough?

  16. “Mr. Dell” is standing in front of the Apple store entrance in the mall directing the crowd to go see the Dell kiosk, but the crowd is actually heading toward the Apple store.

    Mr. Dell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Forget it, they are going to the Apple store instead!!!!! Watch out for the people!!!!!!!!!!! They are going to step on you!!!!!!!!!!! Oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  17. Maybe os x is getting licensed after all… coinciding keynotes, the new this is just the beginning hype at the apple website and an updated ichat for them to link up ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />

  18. It’s like an episode of a sitcom where the cool kid is having a party the same time as the unpopular kid. The cool kid gets all the guests and the unpopular kid wonder where everyone is at?

  19. Since when is assembling white box generic PC’s and re-branding other’s work (Samsung Laptops, for example) constitute being in the CE business? Could this be for the ‘iPod killer’ DJ or Ditty?

    Having Michael Dell speak at CES is kind of like having Rush Limbaugh speak at a MoveOn event.

  20. I think that Mr. Dell is obviously well aware of the media attention on the Macworld keynote, and so every story that reports on macworld will also mention something of his speech as it is on at the same time. He probably thinks this is a smart move but it couls easily backfire if he comes out with some cr*p nobody cares about. (Which is of course quite likely).

  21. And lets not forget Texas bashers, Austin is the home of the Apple National Education Sales Team and about 1000 Apple Employees. Taking the fight to Dell right up the road in Round Rock, TX. Apple Austin is right on the front line. Making it easier for teachers to teach and students to learn, that is what it is all about for us.

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