Jobs suggests Dell should eat his words

Apple's chief executive shares an e-mail chuckle with his employees at the expense of Michael Dell, a big rival.
The New York Times

The story "Jobs suggests Dell should eat his words" published January 15, 2006 at 10:00 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from The New York Times expires after 7 days.

[npxzbebq]

Return of the Jedi

Despite all the flak that Steve Jobs may have (deservedly or not) received over the years, he just might be remembered as the guy who, in the end, saved us from horrible computing. He started it all anyway, so it's fitting he come back to fix what others messed up ;-)

[BlueLaser]

The saga continues

I like that Angus. 1983: A New Hope. 1985: The Empire Strikes Back. 1997: Return of the Jedi. Steve Jobs fits the trilogy pretty well...

[TyTyson]

Suck on THAT Michael Dell

And Steve aint finished with you yet...

[Jesper Josefsson]

Anti-Apple reporting

I have a growing feeling that news.com's reporting on Apple
Computer Inc. is negatively biased. The headlines, the choice of
words in the articles - everything seems to point to that cnet has
made it's mind up about portraying Apple in as a "bad" company.
Anyone agree?

[TyTyson]

Yup

The incredible ignorance about IT also extends to pseudo-journalists too I'm afraid.

Sometimes CNET gets it right and sometimes they get it wrong.

They will learn, just like everyone else, that Apple is going to shake up the stagnant IT industry in ways they never dreamt of.

[Wingsy]

Agree - It's obvious

It's gotten to the point where, when I see a link somewhere to a
headline about something negative about Apple, I can often tell
where it's coming from just by their choice of words.

Makes me not trust ANYTHING I read on c/net (which is becoming
less & less as time goes on).

[macnut222]

Not cnet's fault...

...This time. While I agree that there is an anti-Apple bias on cnet,
as well as other sites, this article comes wholly from The New York
Times.

As it says on the bottom of the article: "Entire contents, Copyright
© 2006 The New York Times. All rights reserved."

[VI Joker]

Take a second look

It be a good idea to take a look at the article from top to bottom again. You might notice its not from CNET, its from NY Times. CNET just pulls articles from other news sources based on their category, technology. While I do think that there is some bias against Apple at the time, its the price of being a market leader.

[nbvail]

It will change a little now

I think intel is a big invester in CNET, but of course M$ is too.

[mgreere]

It's been that way for years

I remember repeatedly thinking the same thing back when
news.com was one of the few competitiors on the landscape
(around 1997).

Now they seem to be slightly less consistently negative.

It's all about page hits now. Anything Apple or iPod related gets
serious page views and an inordinate amount of comments. They
know this, obviously. That's the reason this story.

[assman]

holy hell..

people here are either complaining that cnet is biased toward apple (ipod) or a biased apple hater.

which are they?! pick one and stick with it.

personally i think they're just reporting what is happening and there hasnt been specific focus on the opinions of the reporter..

personally i love apple and i dont see where the negative bias is being shown in the article

[Dead Soulman]

Read carefully.

To all of you complaining about CNET's bias, take a closer look at where this article really came from. It came from the New York Times. That should tell you something.

Blame CNET for picking it up and giving it more of an audience that it deserves. But, don't blame CNET for writing it.

I don't care about the article about two rich guys talking like 7 year-old boys by the swings.

Who cares.

[open-mind]

Re: "...two rich guys talking like 7 year-old boys..."

Dell publically stated (to a room full of 1000 journalists) that
Jobs should close and sell off his company. In other words,
without provocation, publically declared him a loser running a
worthless company.

About six years later, Jobs sends an email to his own employees
to let them know that Dell was wrong, they've surpassed Dell,
and they should feel proud. In other words, congratulating his
employees on their success.

Only sounds like one seven year old boy to me.

[David Arbogast]

No Joke

Not just the New York Times, but also links to Slashdot. What's next, Newsweek?? I smell Soros...

[riscx]

I Care

I remember when Michael Dell made the asinine comment, I was
literally on the verge of purchasing brand new Dell desktop and
laptop systems. After reading his comment on Apple he turned me
off from Dell altogether.

Congrats to Apple on leading technology, god knows where we
would be without them or if we listened to Mr. Dell super-dumb
comments.

[Jonathan]

C|Net could have at least picked a better header title

n/t

[SystemsJunky]

Message has been deleted.

[SystemsJunky]

Message has been deleted.

[open-mind]

Which sounds more arrogant?

Dell publically stated (to a room full of 1000 journalists) that
Jobs should close and sell off his company. In other words,
without provocation, publically declared him a loser running a
worthless company.

About six years later, Jobs sends an email to his own employees
to let them know that Dell was wrong, they've surpassed Dell,
and they should feel proud. In other words, congratulating his
employees on their success.

Which sounds more arrogant?

[Christopher Hall]

My goodness...

Is civility so much to ask?

[Christopher Hall]

Cool.

Thumbs up, Apple. And I mean that. Good show.

Now how about getting some games on your platform, hmm?

[vchmielewski]

Some Games?

Have you actually looked at what games are available on the Mac?
This is a commonly overstated view. I have more games on my Mac
than I have time to play, including the most popular: World of
Warcraft, Halo, Doom, SimCity, The Sims, Tiger Woods, Tour of
Duty, Unreal Tournament, etc, etc...

[morrisce]

Games

Buy a console.

[i,Jimbot]

Games...really?

Do you guys really buy your computer based on what GAMES are
available? Let me quote Ross Perot when I say "Now that's just sad."
You want to play games, pay a few hundred and buy a console.
Better yet, get your pasty white butt outside and see the world,
boy. Nothing wrong with playing a computer game now and then,
but if you need a multi-thousand dollar machine to keep up your
sad addiction to computer games, I'd venture that you're part of the
problem (i.e. fat and out of shape world) and not part of the
solution.

[Thrudheim]

Bad headline

The headline comes from the NYT. It should be noted that Jobs
never said anything so provactive as Dell should "eat his words."
He only said that Dell didn't predict the future so well. I am sure
that Dell himself would agree.

[Lolo Gecko]

oooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh

such modesty

[Stan Johnson]

I prefer PCs but...

I prefer PCs but Apple and Steve Jobs are awesome. What a great thing they have done in this turn around.

[goldsheet]

Great product marketing

Creative Labs, the inventor of MP3 players and software, should actually be the largest company, but one has to give Apple credit for taking a good idea and running with it.

[npxzbebq]

Understatement!

To say Steve Jobs did a great turnaround is, in my opinion, an understatement!!!!

It's a frickin' miracle!!!!!!! Even for long term, die hard Mac fanatics!

The guy also happens to manage Pixar! AND come back from a life-threatening crisis.

AND also just so happened to have kick started the whole "PC" thing!

AND made CEO keynotes actually WORTH watching!

[Norseman]

Where did the NY Times go wrong?

"DOS Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form." -New York Times, November 26, 1991.

Still true today!

[Christopher Hall]

Universally applicable?

So if numbers don't correlate directly to superiority, what of the iPod?

[Llib Setag]

New Mac + Intel Commercial....

Intel chip was trapped in a DULL (Dell) Box instructed to do DULL (Dell) tasks, but today history has changed...

Was that a DIG at DELL?

[npxzbebq]

Hehe

Yes I thought the pronounciation of the world "dull" sounded a bit like "Dell."

Does anyone doubt the influence Macs have on the advertising sector?! This is right inside Apple territory! How many creative directors don't hate Windows?! ;-)

[dysonl]

Unhealthy Apple

Stock price goes up and down all the time. Right now, the momentum is with Apple, not Dell.

However, if you take a closer look at the fundamentals, you'd notice that Apple P/E ratios is more than TWICE that of Dell's -- a whopping 55! This is unhealthy, especially for a company that essentially relies on one product line. This P/E ratio is unsustainable for the mid to long term; it would need a real miracle from Mr. Jobs to keep this up.

Dell still enjoys more than twice the earning of Apple.

[npxzbebq]

Unhealthy Dell

Apple has the growth potential. The future is bright. The market potential is huge.

Where the heck is Dell going?!

Now that I have the option of running Windows and Linux on an Apple computer, should there be a handful of applications or games I want to load up, why the heck would I ever buy anything other than a Mac?

Dell has a great online store experience? So does Apple.

[Thomas, David]

Ignorance Does not Breed Wisdom

Check out AAPL stock for the past 5 years. Unprecedented, and
astounding are more accurate words to describe it.

Keep your head in the sand, or the origice you actually use. Speak
no more of fanciful tales dancing in your tiny brain.

[Thomas, David]

WHAT 3000 Apple are you Talking About?!

Did i miss something here? I do not recall anywhere that states my
an Apple computer is going to cost you 3000 dollars.

Shove your lies where the sun does not shine

[Mirlin11]

The little engine that could....

This is a bit of irony. Apple is worth more than Dell and their shares are trading at a higher price. Way to go Apple!! Looking forward to getting a Macbook Pro this year.

[tahbasco]

Anybody can build a computer...

It's not suprising that Apple was able to pass Dell, for the moment. The market fluctuates so this can easily head the other way, for the both companies. Dell builds computers and sells electronics, Apple creates software AND builds a computer. Plus the iPod owns the DAP market, for now.

Anywho Dell is lame, wake me up when they eclipse Microsoft.

[DevildogCO1]

Still to eat for Apple to tell anyone to eat anything.......

Its nice to see Apple turning things around. But before they tell anyone else to do anything they should remember that Dell has been profitable for quite some time and hasen't needed a "turn-around." And they should also remember their own mis-steps. The Mac Mini was no the hot seller they were hopping for, and at 1400 bucks for the cheapest Intel based MAC thats abit high. For a little more then half that price someone can get a PC running twice as fast. Mac has a cool OC but not cool enough for the extra cash.

[DevildogCO1]

Oops....... Major typo in title!!!

Man I with they let you edit on here. Sorry guys.

Mac Fan boys are Ad cash generators

What I see is, Mac fan's point of view there is no other product is better than Apple products. MP3 players to computers to OS to application software. It makes them angry and blood boiling to say something better things is out there.

So they respond with very "civilized" way (like pointing others are fools, diluted, bla, bla..) And the web sites like News.com earns money in page hits.

In the end, they are just computers and users are happy at their level. If they are not happy, they would switch if they have extra money lying around.

[Earl Benser]

In other words....

... fan-boys of all persuasions are just random noise in the system.
Sounds about right. Users are where they are for reasonably valid
reasons, and while they aren't necessarily happy about it, they have
no obvious alternative. When such an alternative shows up, the
user makes his move.

That does sort of sum it up. And it makes an awful lot of fan-boy
posting just useless wastes of time.

[glui2001]

Corporate is different from consumer space

So what if it cost $3000 for a machine. If you're a company you can easily afford one. Don't forget coporations usually consider other factors (unlike consumers) when making huge purchases. Things like initial costs, TCO, and ROI.

Like previous posters have mentioned. If it works then it works! Save headaches and hours. And more importantly if it saves money (TCO, ROI), THEN that's something every corporation will care about. Not how "nice" a mac might look.

[Earl Benser]

Not all companies do it right....

I worked for one which was solid Mac, and everything worked
with an It department of about four guys per site. The Mac users
were essentially their own IT group. Then, some management
dork got a wild hair to switch to PC's. Software wasn't the
reason, the Mac's already had the software needed. But there
was some fog about the PC being the platform for business. In a
nutshell, the switch was made, the IT department blew up to
about 20 guys per site, and none of the users had a clue about
how to keep their computers running. Productivity took a hell of
a beating.

It was a brilliant decision which the company survived. But, I just
wonder how much farther the company could have gone if the
management dork had been more intelligent.

Wait and see if it makes to corporations

It's not just ROI and price. Availability of applications, compability of existing apps, User training, etc., It's really hard make Apple OS and hardware into corporate environment for above reasons.

Till then, Apple computers is for home and small group of graphic users.

[dysonl]

Yes, Corporate is a different ball game

Exactly! Fancy case and minimalist mouse wouldn't do any good in a server room.

[glui2001]

those damn sys admins ;)

reminds me of a song http://deadtroll.com/index2.html?/sysadmin/index.html~content