if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803
Fool’s Cap
by Lee
I remember when Michael Dell said this all those years ago.
t may not be the last laugh, but on Friday afternoon, after the close of the stock market, Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple Computer, shared an e-mail chuckle with his employees at the expense of Dell, a big rival.
The message was prompted by the 12 percent surge in Apple’s stock price last week, which pushed the company’s market capitalization to $72.13 billion, passing Dell’s value of $71.97 billion.
In 1997, shortly after Jobs returned to Apple, the company he helped start in 1976, Dell’s founder and chairman, Michael Dell, was asked at a technology conference what might be done to fix Apple, then deeply troubled financially.
“What would I do?” Dell said to an audience of several thousand information technology managers. “I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”
On Friday, apparently savoring the moment, Jobs sent a brief e-mail message to Apple employees, which read: “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.”
Dell executives did not return calls over the weekend asking for comment on Apple’s rising fortunes.
Dell appears to have softened his views on Apple recently. In June, he responded to an e-mail inquiry from CNET News.com and said that Dell would consider putting Apple’s OS X operating system on its machines if Apple ever decided to sell it separately from its hardware.
Too funny. One of the ironclad rules of the technology world: don’t ever count out Steve Jobs.
Comments
If Apple’s stock is up, I’m betting it has a hell of a lot more to do with iPods and iTunes than computers.
Bill Gates said “No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer” back in 1981.
I said in 2000, “Processor speed is becoming secondary to the amount of RAM you have. Of course, all of this is totally limited by your operating system.” (That’s before XP.)
If Apple’s stock is up, I’m betting it has a hell of a lot more to do with iPods and iTunes than computers.
I couldn’t agree more. In a couple years, maybe less, the mp3 player wars will level out and apple stocks will drop again.
Buss speed people! Buss speed!
Anyway, these guys just love to engage in pissing contests. It’s like friggin’ bar fights for nerds.
There is something special about Jobs though. The guy has an uncanny ability to set trends and integrate technology into people’s lives. He’s a visionary. Annoying but visionary.
Well, let’s see, the Mac X operating system is UNIX, and Apple is going to start using Intel as its processor set of chips.
So what part of Apple is left? The Apple logo?
It’s really an WinTelNix system, from the hardware to the operating system to the application software.
It’s WinTelNix (Apple) competing against WinTell (Dell). There is no REAL Apple, anymore.
I’d love a Mac… if I could afford one. I have two decent PCs. I could sell them both and maybe have enough for a low-end Mac. Fuck that.
If Apple’s stock is up, I’m betting it has a hell of a lot more to do with iPods and iTunes than computers.
I couldn’t agree more. In a couple years, maybe less, the mp3 player wars will level out and apple stocks will drop again.
Well, I have to say that I am one of the people that has helped Apple. I got one of the new 5th gen iPods. I figured what the hell, I’ve been buying my music from the iTunes music store for the past 2 years any way.
Jobs is a master of repackageing stuff that is already on the market, telling people his is “cooler” than others, and charding 3 times what it’s worth. Once the ipod craze dies, apple will be in the shitter again until Jobs can manufacture a new trend.
I’m glad Apple didn’t take over the industry. If they had computers would cost a fortune still. Gates did something great by selling to many manufacturers, put competition into the market and dropped the price. I have a network with a server and 3 PCs on it. I couldn’t sell the whole network for more than $200, including monitors. I wish I had this when I was a kid, I could have done so much more with it since I would have had the time.
BTW, windows runs fine if you don’t spend all your time at teen lolitas sites.
#!/usr/bin/perl
$windows = “teh suck”;
$mac = “teh suckier”;
if ($system =~ /nix/)
{
print “Good choice”;
}
I must have helped Apple’s stock as well, since I bought an G5 iMac and a 60g iPod over the holidays. I love this Mac, wish I had made the switch years ago.
I got the mini Mac ‘cause I have a 19” monitor and such already. It isn’t bad for a $600 Mac. It is decidedly Unix-ish, but they have made it a bit easier to use than Linux.
Lee, do you know off-hand if it will run a Gnome desktop?
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Yeah, but he certainly screwed himself over in the ‘80s with a few boneheaded decisions. Apple should be the biggest computer company in the world, instead Windows driven machines are 90% of the market.