There's no love lost between Steve Jobs and Dell founder Michael Dell. Back in 1997, when Michael was CEO of Dell, he famously told a group of IT big wigs, ""What would I do [if I were in charge of Apple]? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."
Oh, Michael. That's the kind of statement that waits in a corner for years, thinking, "I'm going to bite him in the backside ... hard."
Remember Michael Dell's legendary snub of Apple's prospects? Back in 1997, Dell was publicly asked what he'd do with the recently re-Steve'd Apple if given the opportunity. "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders," said Dell, earning the people's denigration and infamy forever. Of course, how could he possibly know?
Fast forward 10 years, and Dell's $62B market capitalization is dwarfed by Apple's $144B valuation. AAPL is trading at all-time highs, possibly portending a split, and the July prediction of AAPL passing IBM's $160B cap (!) is starting to look more rational every day -- but first it'll likely pass Intel's $149B. That's a lot of value that, shamefully, Apple has created for shareholders instead of taking Michael Dell's sage advice and throwing in the towel back in '97. Don't feel bad for MD, though; as Apple 2.0 notes, he's personally worth about 15 billion dollars. Seems like there's money to be made at both ends of the computer quality spectrum. via Apple 2.0
Over lunch, TUAW reader Eddie swung by his local AT&T store near his office to check out their new iPhone displays. He reports that the display was not fully installed when he got there (he snapped this pic for everyone to share) and it appears that the display is being powered by, of all things, a Dell. Dude! The video, which runs on repeat, is about three or four minutes long. It appeared to be in HD and looked very sharp. Thanks Eddie!
Well having annoyed a lot of folks with his recent missive on DRM, Uncle Steve seemed likely to be making more enemies on Friday at a conference in Texas about K-12 education reform where he appeared along with Michael Dell. The AP reports that Jobs said, "I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way. This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy." Being in higher education, I see the results of our K-12 education on a daily basis, and it's clear that there's a problem. One interesting thing about this, whether you ultimately agree with Jobs or not, is that he felt free to say it. Jobs even allowed, "Apple just lost some business in this state, I'm sure," though the AP noted that "the audience applauded enthusiastically" several times. It is perhaps not surprising that Dell "sat quietly with his hands folded in his lap" while Jobs was being his charismatic self.
I just recently plunked down some of my sweet, sweet blogging money for a 24 inch Dell monitor (check out my setup) which I am loving. Setting it up with my MacBook running OS X 10.4.8 was very easy (as long as you have one of these). There are a few things that did get me, which I thought I would point out for you readers out there.
Above you see the Arrangement section from the Display preference pane in System Preferences (note that each display will popup its own Display pref pane, but only the main display will have the Arrangement option). This is where you can do a few things:
Arrange the displays by dragging the boxes that represent them around
Move the Dock and the menu bar to whichever monitor you want to use as you main monitor (as you can see I'm using the 24 incher as my main display)
Mirror the output on each display
This is where you should first go when you have multiple monitors, however, the fun doesn't end there.
In yet another Apple/Dell pricing smackdown, ZDNet's Ed Burnette priced out a Dell XPS M1710 versus the Apple 17-inch MacBook Pro. After matching the following components, the Apple MacBook came out on top, shipping for $2,699 before taxes versus the Dell's $3,222 price tag:
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7600 (2.33GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB) processor, 17-inch wide screen display, 256MB dedicated 3D graphics card, 2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHZ (2 DIMM), 100GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive, CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW), Integrated Audio, Standard battery, Internal Bluetooth (2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate), Internal 802.11g wireless, DVD and movie editing software, 1Yr Ltd Warranty, and Customer support (at least 30 days).
The Dell offered a higher screen resolution but the Apple has the built-in iSight and back-lit keyboard. Follow the read link to read the entire post.
Product recalls are certainly nothing new to the tech industry, but two significant PC players (Dell and Apple) having to recall a collective 5.9 million batteries has to sting just a little for Sony. Macworld is reporting that the Japanese company announced an estimate on the cost of said sting: between ¥20 billion to ¥30 billion (US$172 million to $258 million). The moral of this story? QA is a good thing.
Let's hope the upcoming summit in San Francisco on li-ion battery manufacturing standards - jointly held by the likes of Apple, HP, Dell and Lenovo - helps cut down on the exploding notebooks so we can all get back to our daily routines.
CNN is reporting Apple, who, like Dell, relies on Sony-manufactured batteries, is jumping on the recall wagon and recalling a whopping 1.1 million of the fire-prone beasties. There's no link yet on CNN's site, but here's the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's page on the matter. Just when you think Sony couldn't get any worse... And weren't we all so smug when we heard about Dell's misfortune?
UPDATE: This covers G4-based iBooks and PowerBooks only at this point.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in, although I happened upon it at CNN first]
Dell is having a little issue with 4.1 million batteries in their laptops (if you have a Dell laptop check out this site to make sure yours isn't on the list). This isn't good news for Dell, however, it would seem that it isn't good news for Dell toting travelers either. Qantas, the Australian airline, has just put in a place a policy stating that people can bring Dell laptops with them on the plane but can't use them on battery power. The batteries must be popped out and the laptops plugged into an outlet (if there is one available).
I'm sure Dell is hoping that other airlines do not follow suit, especially since I would wager that a large number of business travelers 'got a Dell.'
System Shootouts has pit a Mac Pro against a Dell Precision 690 workstation in an in-depth feature-for-feature comparison to see who gets to go home with the prom queen. This match is of particular interest in part because of how detailed the feature criteria is (it included extra drive/bays like a floppy or memory card readers, as well as any included backup solutions and even web authoring software), but also because of how ultimately mismatched these two machines are. One machine is so overpriced that System Shootouts opted to break traditional policy and include a display and/or extended warranty program in the name of mercy for the losing contender.
In case you can't tell, I'm trying not to spoil this particular match because I think it's such an interesting upset, especially in light of how Apple did their own hardware match-up on stage at WWDC 2006. Check out the shootout for yourself to see whether the Mac Pro or the Dell wound up spending prom night home alone.
Michael Dell, amidst lackluster growth reports and a dismal earnings warning, has fired a couple more potshots across Apple's bow. During a recent Q&A, Dell's CEO cited MTV's new URGE music service as one reason why he is skeptical of the iTMS market dominance over the next ten to twenty years. I guess we'll have to see how well Microsoft irons out their Plays for Sure, er URGE, er Zune project (indecisive, anyone?), and how upset users get when the Zune crashes with a BSOD right in the middle of a wireless purchase, accidentally charging their credit cards for 5 additional albums that weren't even in their shopping cart.
Going further, Mr. Dell also bragged about Dell's market share statistics, stating that Apple isn't a threat because they haven't broken into the list of top five market share holders. All debates as to whether Apple is trying to, or even should, dominate the world with their shiny computers aside, Michael is only half right: Apple's market share in the U.S. has actually jumped high enough to rank them 4th in PC manufacturers (again, in the U.S.).
How many times do we have to tell you this, Mr. Dell? Insulting Apple won't make them open up OS X for you.
We all know that MacBooks run a little hot, but do they run unusually hot? Well, Krische onLine wanted to find out so they did a fairly unscientific test. Take one MacBook and one Dell Latitude D620 and have them play a DVD. While they are playing measure the temperature and see what the data says. Both machines sport the same processor (how odd is it that the latest and greatest from Dell and Apple both have the same chip in them?) and they were both in the same environment for the test.
The result? At first glace the MacBook seemed to run much hotter than the Dell, but on average they kicked out about the same amount of heat.
Dell, that little computer company that could (and often does) mock Apple, has launched an official blog. one2one, Direction Conversations with Dell is an attempt by the company to open a dialogue with its customers and, I imagine, make the Dell experience a little better.
I'm not a big fan of Dell's machines but I applaud this attempt to interact with their customers, I mean their blog even has comments enabled! How much would you like to bet that we will never see an official corporate blog from Apple, or at least not as long as Steve Jobs is at the helm?
Somehow, some way, Mac OS drivers have appeared as a download option for a Dell Latitude X1. How many times do we have to tell you Michael Dell: You can't sell Mac OS X, no matter how often or how badly you wish to sell an operating system that's made for this century. Besides, trying to sneak it onto your site is just bad form.
If you want to see this interesting quirk for yourself, check it out at Dell's Driver and Downloads site. As of this writing, you can snag your own 'Mac OS' drivers for a Latitude X1.
This most likely is nothing more than a quirk of Dell's site, as we (thankfully) haven't heard of Jobs changing his mind or seen reports of the sky falling. You can go on about your business.
In what is surely a response to Apple's success with its retail stores, Dell announced that they would be opening two full-sized stores later this year. One will be located in Dallas, and the other in New York.
According to the Austin-Statesman, Dell will not be changing its tried-and-trusted policy of building every machine to order. Customers at the Dell stores will be able to touch and use the computers on display but not buy and carry them away.
Hey, stop laughing. C'mon, who wants to actually carry home the computer they just purchased? I know I like waiting a week for my purchases, don't you?
Not to be left out, eMachines has announced that they will be opening an island sales kiosk in the Cherryland Mall in Traverse City, MI. There won't actually be any computers on display, but there will be lots of glossy pictures.
There's no love lost between Steve Jobs and Dell founder Michael Dell. Back in 1997, when Michael was CEO of Dell, he famously told a group of IT big wigs, ""What would I do [if I were in charge of Apple]? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."
Well having 
In yet another Apple/Dell pricing smackdown, ZDNet's Ed Burnette 
Product recalls are certainly nothing new to the tech industry, but two significant PC players (Dell and Apple) having to recall a collective 5.9 million batteries has to sting just a little for Sony. Macworld is 
CNN is reporting Apple, who, like Dell, relies on Sony-manufactured batteries, is jumping on the recall wagon and recalling a whopping 1.1 million of the fire-prone beasties. There's no link yet on CNN's site, but here's the 
Dell is having a 
System Shootouts has pit a Mac Pro against a Dell Precision 690 workstation in an in-depth feature-for-feature comparison to see who gets to go home with the prom queen. This match is of particular interest in part because of how detailed the feature criteria is (it included extra drive/bays like a floppy or memory card readers, as well as any included backup solutions and even web authoring software), but also because of how ultimately mismatched these two machines are. One machine is so overpriced that System Shootouts opted to break traditional policy and include a display and/or extended warranty program in the name of mercy for the losing contender.
Michael Dell, amidst lackluster growth reports and a dismal earnings warning, has fired a couple more potshots across Apple's bow. During a recent Q&A, Dell's CEO cited MTV's new URGE music service as one reason why he is skeptical of the iTMS market dominance over the next ten to twenty years. I guess we'll have to see how well Microsoft irons out their 
In what is surely a response to Apple's success with its retail stores, Dell announced that they would be opening two full-sized stores later this year. One will be located in Dallas, and the other in New York.
