“Last week I thought it would be interesting — given that both the Wall Street Journal and TechNewsWorld had covered my professional relationship with Dell regarding its new MP3 service — to chat about what it would take to beat Apple. But in my analysis I left out one important thing: Apple is tricky. Already there are rumors of a redesigned iPod nano that would position well against this new Dell offering, and the Apple-funded sites seem to be aggressively trying to disparage this as-yet unborn product. Someone seems scared to death of this as-yet unborn product,” Rob ‘Microsoft Wrote the First Mac OS’ Endlerle scribbles for TechNewsWorld.
MacDailyNews Take: Enderle also conveniently left out that he even had a “professional relationship” with Dell. Whoops. It’s called “disclosure,” Rob.
Now, the link that Enderle uses above is to MacDailyNews (“Apple-funded sites seem to be aggressively trying to disparage this as-yet unborn product.”) We are not an “Apple-funded site.” (We wish. If you want to fund us, Apple, email webmaster@macdailynews.com immediately!) We’re a totally independent website. We are, like many websites, tech and otherwise, merely an Apple Store affiliate which means we run ads for Apple products and receive a standard commission (at no extra cost to you) if you buy after clicking one of our ads. We are also affiliates for the online stores of Adobe, HP (printers), Best Buy, Mac Mall, and many others. As with those companies, we receive no direct funds from Apple.
As our mission statement says, in part, “Why do we do this? Because long ago we received the most important advice a computer user can ever receive, ‘Get a Mac.’ We want to help spread that valuable advice.” Rob “Quote For Hire” Enderle would be the last person on earth to understand our motivation as it has nothing to do with cash payments. Finally, to be perfectly clear, as we state on our site here, “MacDailyNews/iPodDailyNews never receives compensation for any article posted on the websites. We cover only products that interest us and products that our readers request be covered. We do, from time to time, request and receive products for review purposes. The receipt of such products does not guarantee a review will be conducted, much less a good review.”
We cover this Dell story for its comedic value and also because it’s newsworthy that Dell’s decision-making process is so screwed up as to hire Rob Enderle as a consultant.
Enderle continues, “Since we talked last week about how Dell might create a successful service, let’s talk this week about the lengths Apple might go to in order to stop them.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple could do nothing to iPod+iTunes for the next decade and Dell still wouldn’t come anywhere near SanDisk, much less Apple. Endlere is attempting to elevate Dell’s trial balloon from its status as a deflated joke. It isn’t working.
Enderle continues, “Apple has a set of top reporters that it feeds products to and who give it favorable reviews. Simply by spending time with them, Jobs can likely get them thinking negatively about Dell’s new product and be primed to disparage it as soon as it actually launches (though I doubt some will wait that long). I’d be surprised if many aren’t already primed to go negative on this product even though it isn’t finished yet.”
Full article, Think Before You Click™, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Michael C.” for the heads up.]
Robbie, you hit-whore, everyone’s primed to “go negative” on a Dell music player/service because Dell has already proven to be a laughable failure in such matters in the past; even worse than most of the other iPod/iTunes roadkill. It’s obviously going to be way too little, way, way, way too late. Zune redux. Anyone with even half a brain can predict it, which explains why Rob Enderle thinks a Dell-branded music offering would be a great idea.