

Dell: Apple should close shop (1997) - rkwz
http://news.cnet.com/Dell-Apple-should-close-shop/2100-1001_3-203937.html

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admp
And almost 10 years later, in 2006, Jobs sent the following note to his
employees:

"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."

Source:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/16/technology/16apple.html?pa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/16/technology/16apple.html?pagewanted=print)

~~~
qq66
And today, Apple is worth well over 10x what Dell is.

~~~
YooLi
Actually 12x :)

<http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/28418/>

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jefe78
A billion here, a billion there. Eventually you start talking real money!

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olalonde
Please people, put the year in the title when you submit old stuff.

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chaz
To be fair to Michael Dell, this is what AAPL looked like in 1997:
<http://bit.ly/fyjoqu>

And this is what DELL vs AAPL looked like in 1995-1997: <http://bit.ly/hhKZGH>

While Dell was clearly wrong in the long run, he was surely not the only
person to believe Apple was through.

~~~
wtallis
It's interesting to look at those stock charts. By the end of 2004, Dell had
earned back about half the share price that it lost in the dot-com bust, but
its share price has never been that high since, and in fact is now about the
same as when Michael Dell made this comment.

By contrast, at the end of 2004 Apple's stock had recovered entirely from the
dot-com bust, and has now reached almost 10 times the price it peaked at
during the dot-com bubble.

Of course, you can make pretty much the same comparison between Apple and most
any tech company that was around during the dot-com bubble. Very few have ever
recovered for any length of time, and among those who have, IBM seems to be
doing best, but they're only about 20% higher than their pre-bust peak.

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bitserf
"There is some concern that Apple will have a hard time recruiting a top-notch
CEO because of Jobs's presence."

I think he's done a passable job.

~~~
silvestrov
Today: There is some concern that Apple will have a hard time recruiting a
top-notch CEO who can replace Jobs's presence.

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jefe78
I don't really understand the rationale behind 'closing shop' in this
scenario. Why would they close up shop? To make Dell's life a little easier?
They wish! What a difference that would have made! :P

Article isn't very clear either,

"Apple is reportedly planning to come out with network computers that would
require high-end servers to function."

I understood the sentence, but its kind of ambiguous. Would these be remote
servers, in-house, etc? Did this ever come to fruition?

~~~
ahlatimer
This was written over a decade ago (in 1997), when Apple was in a much more
precarious situation than the one they are in now.

~~~
jefe78
I wonder how that would have changed the industry if they had shutdown, for
whatever reason. Would we all be working on Dells?!

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originalgeek
FYI 13 years in the computer industry is like 65 human years.

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benohear
It is truly astonishing how much Jobs got right. I'd forgotten about the clone
market killing and the Microsoft deal, both of which seemed like suicide at
the time, albeit for different reasons.

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citricsquid
business is business, to suggest it was anything else is silly. It's clear he
(Dell) understood this, brands are built on confidence, misplaced or accurate.

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younata
[1997]

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bluedanieru
So? Shall I start investing in poorly performing companies with crap
leadership and terrible products, then? Are they all going to turn around in a
big way after a decade, like Apple?

It's all well and good to point and laugh with the benefit of hindsight. How
about taking a look at Apple's position in 1997 and finding any reason to
invest at all? That would make an interesting submission.

~~~
benohear
I suppose the thing to spot was the change in leadership. Oh, and that Jobs
wasn't the washed up has-been that everyone (including myself) thought he was.
I guess that follows Y Combinator's approach of looking at the team rather
than the product / idea.

The other thing would be that Apple always had a devoted following even when
their computers were abysmal, which fits with Warren Buffets idea of a big
moat.

But yeah, hindsight 100%. At the time I wouldn't have given them a bean
either.

To answer your question with a question: What would be the 2011 equivalent? We
need a company with big mindshare, doing poorly who just had a change of
leadership.

~~~
Terretta
A company that's spent a long time getting good at a disruptive technology,
something that appears simple yet requires a deep understanding, while the
incumbent are all focused on incremental improvements of soon to be legacy
technology.

