How Do You Like Them Apples?
If you ever need an example of why it’s usually best to keep your mouth shut when it comes to the (not-so) well-being of your competitors, remind youself of Michael Dell.
Back in 1997, when someone at a technology conference asked him what he would do to “fix” Apple (which was then floundering financially), the chairman and founder of Dell computers offered this as his public estimation of the companies worth:
“What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to shareholders.”
Hee hee hee. Oh, Michael. What a funny thing to say… and no one’s laughing louder right now than Apple founder Steve Jobs, who just last week guided his company’s market capitalization to $72.13 billion (off a recent 12% surge in stock price). Again, that’s $72.13 billion… which, if I’m doing my math correctly, puts Apple just ahead of, oh, Dell Computers, whose value is about $71.97 billion.
True, Dell is still a richer man than Jobs (he’s worth about $14.2 billion, to Jobs’ estimated $3 billion or so), but that hasn’t kept Jobs from gloating just a little over Dell’s miscalculation. In an email message to his employees, Jobs wrote:
“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.”
All of us loyal Mac users are cheering right along with ya, Steve.
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