On October 6, 1997, in response to the question of what he’d do if he was in charge of Apple, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell stood before a crowd of several thousand IT executives and answered flippantly, “What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”
A little more than a month later, on November 10, 1997, new Apple Interim CEO (iCEO) Steve Jobs responded, speaking in front of an image of Michael Dell’s bulls-eye covered face, “We’re coming after you, you’re in our sights.”
On January 13, 2006, after a little more than eight years of hard work, Apple Inc. passed Dell, Inc. in market value, $72.13 billion vs. $71.97 billion at market close, respectively.
• 2X: On July 27, 2007, Apple’s value doubled that of Dell’s, $127.81 billion vs. $63.65 billion, respectively.
• 3X: On December 6, 2007, Apple’s market value passed 3 times that of Dell’s, $165.66 billion vs. $54.42 billion, respectively.
• 4X: On May 01, 2008, Apple’s market value quadrupled that of Dell’s, $158.66 billion vs. $38.97 billion, respectively.
• 5X: On February 12, 2009, Apple rose $2.60 to hit a market value of $88.37 billion or 5 times that of Dell’s $17.52 billion.
• 6X: On October 20, 2009, Apple rose $11.21 to $201.07 to hit a market value of $180.12 billion or more than 6 times that of Dell’s $29.97 billion.
• 7X: On January 26, 2010, Apple gained $7.57 to $210.64 to hit a market value of $189.72 billion or more than 7 times that of Dell’s current $27.03 billion.
• 8X: On May 21, 2010, Apple gained $1.95 to $239.74 to hit a market value of $218.12 billion or more than 8 times that of Dell’s current $25.84 billion.
• 9X: On June 1, 2010, Apple gained $6.89 to $263.77 to hit a market value of $240.01 billion or more than 9 times that of Dell’s current $26.29 billion.
• 10X: On September 9, 2010, Apple gained $1.60 to $265.37 to hit a market value of $242.43 billion or more than 10 times that of Dell’s current $24.21 billion.
• 11X: On September 23, 2010, Apple rose $3.79, or 1.32% to $291.54 to hit a market value of $266.34 billion or more than 11 times that of Dell’s current $23.81 billion.
• 12X: On January 27, 2011, Apple rose $0.26, or 0.08% to $344.11 to hit a market value of $317.02 billion or more than 12 times that of Dell’s current $26.02 billion.
• 13X: Today, Apple rose $9.86, or 2.64% to $383.58 to hit a market value of $355.61 billion or more than 13 times that of Dell’s current $27.29 billion.
Apple is also a debt-free company and currently has significantly more cash and short-term investments on-hand ($76 billion) than Dell Inc. is worth (singificantly more than double, in fact).
In fact, Apple is now the world’s most valuable publicly-traded company (something Dell has never achieved and never will).
Hello, Mikey? Miiiiikeeeeey? Got any snappy retorts today?
See AAPL and DELL quotes via NASDAQ here.