Should Apple buy beleaguered Dell?

“Almost everyone knows that Apple is sitting on a huge pile of cash, around $24.5 billion. That might be enough to fill one of Scrooge McDuck’s cash vaults, but there have to be some other interesting things to do with that much money,” Frank Fox writes for Low End Mac.

“While feeling depressed about how low the value of Apple stock has fallen recently (below $90 per share), I checked out some other companies that are falling due to the same economic worries. There I saw the perfect company that is finally cheap enough that Apple can buy the whole thing: Dell,” Fox writes. “That’s right, Dell has a market capitalization of only $18.55 billion. Apple can buy it and still have money left over.”

MacDailyNews Take: You could’ve just read MacDailyNews last month: Apple could buy Dell outright; Mac-maker has more cash on hand than Dell is worth – October 21, 2008

Fox continues, explaining that Apple should buy Dell for “total shock value,” for help getting a foot in the door in enterprise, and for a brand that Apple “could use for selling low spec PC with Mac OS X installed without diluting its own brand value.”

Full article here.

74 Comments

  1. Why? This makes zero sense. If Apple really wanted to bash their way into enterprise, they could license OSX to Dell and MAKE money instead os spend it. If they wanted a low-end PC. they could make one for a lot less than $18B. Simply plop a MacMini into a slightly expandable case.

  2. WHAT A STUPID IDEA. Why not just put your cash on fire?

    Dell and other PC vendors are competing against each other. That benefits Apple. (Divide and conquer.) Why in the world would they want to waste such a huge chunk of cash to give HP a Christmas present?

    And since when did Apple want a big entry into the enterprise, and was unable to get it on it’s own merits? When they really try, they succeed!

    Apple’s stockholders don’t want Windows machines. Why should Apple buy a bunch?

  3. Yep, I can hear the conversation in the Cupertino board room going like this;

    #3: “Hey, DELL is doing quite poorly.”

    #4: “Oh. Well let’s spend most of our cash by purchasing this failing company.”

    Others: “Yes, yes!” “Good idea!” “Let’s invest most of our cash in failure!” “Hear hear!”

    Sound like a typical Apple move?

  4. I’ve forgotten if Apple could buy Adobe, but if they could, then they should.

    That would mean that they could build Photoshop and Illustrator into iLife – and charge more for upgrades/new discs.

    They could also hold onto PDF software for as long as it takes for PCs to be crippled. They could encode PDFs so that Windows couldn’t read more than 3 images in one file, for instance. Mind you, they could do that anyway.

    Adobe: Bought: One less company being late with Mac OS X software releases. Sounds like sense.

    Of course, they probably won’t, but I think there are opportunities.

     Think Different.

  5. Buying a PC retailer when Mac is a best seller? What for? Dell should shut down and give the money back to its shareholders… period.
    There are lot better stuff to buy… and better servers manufacturers… Sun Microsystem would be much more shinny to get under the hood!

  6. The question posed is incomprehensibly silly – why on earth would Apple want to buy Dell? Dell is running itself into the ground and is headed towards increasing irrelevancy; there is nothing that Dell has to offer Apple. To pose this question as a hypothetical is just a waste of everyone’s time. Apple would never buy Dell and there is no reason to even contemplate a scenario where this would happen.

  7. Agreed, buy Sun, atleast they are a tech company. Besides if Apple were going to buy a manufacturer, wouldn’t they buy the big 3 north american auto makers????? They only need another 500 million.

  8. apple should stick to their game plan.
    1. That $24.5billion is going to get them through the economic mess so they don’t lose workers in all areas.
    2. There is nothing that DELL has that apple wants. Don’t say market share, cuz then all those windows machines that fail are then apple’s headache. BAD BAD.
    3. Apple is doing just fine. The stock share does not translate how the company is doing in sales and performance.
    4. DELL sucks period.
    5. Well Apple is doing just fine. They sometimes come out with a redefining product, or just make the ones out there just that much better that makes you feel good that made a cash worthy purchase.
    6. Dell suck period.i got in trouble at work for bring in my own mac mini to replace my dell desktop given to me. and my supervisor got pissed cuz i was able to get all my work done and he didn’t, what an asshole.

  9. God sakes!!! All this idiotic crap about Apple buying this or that! DELL!!! I mean crap like this getting airtime is one of the downsides of the internet, if it was only a print world the only rag that might print it would probably run the story next to the latest Elvis sighting..

    Why not try and buy mcDonalds, or Woolworths or thick woolie socks or Ann Summers (similar logo?) its just tedious fucking bollocks!!!

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