Jobs calls out Dell, challenges to pistols at dawn
By Ryan Block 
posted January 16th 2006 9:01AM
posted January 16th 2006 9:01AM
In what we might only
characterize as a (rare) moment for the man, looks like last week Stevie J. let his guard down long enough to fire off
an email to the All Apple Employees list regarding his company's market cap (now $72.13 billion) surpassing that of
Dell's ($71.97b):"Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve."Naw, we wouldn't characterize this as outright gloating, and bear in mind unlike Dell, Steve didn't air this laundry publicly (at least not directly, though we're sure he must've known this email would get out in the open). Hey, we can even imagine it must've felt pretty vindicating after Dell's '97 statement suggesting Apple shut down and "give the money back to the shareholders," but damn people, can't we all just get along?
For all the Apple bashers. This gets said again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Apple has created a lot of innovative stuff for such a small company. Many of it's computer and other product designs are recognized by the industry as some of the best designed stuff out there as evidenced by numorous industrial design awards.
I'm sure most of you Apple bashers use Windows. Guess what? Most of the features on Windows is a direct copy off of the MacOS. Yes, some of you bring up that some of the elements in the MacOS originated at Xerox (most don't mention that Apple had a license to copy it). However, it was at Apple that the first truly useable and useful GUI for computers was born. That's not to say MS didn't make some improvements in Windows that wasn't present in the MacOS. I like Windows Explorer and it's folder trees.
You can't tell me that the Apple iPod taken as a whole was not an innovative product. It was heads and tails better than any of the clunky DAP's out at the time.
How about the Newton? It basically set the tone for all PDA's to come. And I think that had Apple not prematurely killed their Newton division, it could be dominating the portable computing market. Heck, you might have heard about some of the guys from the Newton department who left Apple. I think they were called Palm...
For small nobody shit company, it sure has had a large impact on the computer and tech industry.
No gloating in that memo-even admits that the rankings could flipflop.
Yes, Apple did it with the Ipod, but still quite an achievement. It might even be more impressive to have done it with the Ipod.
TO ALL THE PEOPLE WONDERING WHY APPLE IS WORTH MORE THAN DELL... especially post 39.
Its because Dell isn't growing anymore. DUH. If you knew anything about business, finance, investing, you'd know this. Yeah Dell is #1. Yeah they sell a lot more computers than Apple. So what. For the stock to go up the profits need to go up. Which means revenue needs to go up. And Dell hasn't been doing that.
Oh, by the way, Microsoft hasn't grown much in the past 5 years. And guess what, the stock hasn't done squat in the past 5 years.
Dell is basically growing at the rate of the pc industry. Apple is growing its pc sales faster than the rest of the industry, including Dell. PLUS, it has this little division selling iPods. You might have heard of the iPod. And the MP3 player market is projected to at least double this year. Apple sold about 25million iPods in 2005. They are projected to sell 60 million plus in 2006. Unlike the pc industry which is growing about 6%. And I really don't think Dell is going to double its pc sales in 2006.
And post #35... it is not about perception. Market cap and stock price are based on revenue, profit, and future estimates. DUH. Wtf.
Seriously, some of the posts on here show some major stupidity and ignorance of how the world works.
Read this link then STFU.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ByteOfTheApple/blog/archives/2006/01/how_can_apple_b.html?campaign_id=rss_blog_blogspotting
Personally, this seems to me like the company newsletter equivalent of the Twain quote: "Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated."
At worst, it could be seen as turnabout, which was still fair play when last I checked.
Everyone who owns a mac got an overpriced computer for the sole purpose of joining the Mac cult of losers who need the apple brand to make them feel better about themselves. Pathetic when you think about it.
I do own an ipod and it rocks, but I don't feel "special" or "better" than people who own other MP3 players.