Comments on: Dell Redux and the end of an era

Gateway's Ted Waitt and Michael Dell, two titans from the heyday of direct PC sales, are going to leave very different legacies.

[lmasanti]

quote:
"As fate would have it, both Waitt and Dell were forced to return as CEO because their chosen successors stumbled."

Well, Steve Jobs was fired from his created company by the CEO that he choose!

[Seaspray0]

I'm guessing that Steve fired the CEO that fired him. It's always easy to look back after the fact and see the mistakes. The hard part is predicting the mistakes and stopping them before they happen.

[gerrrg]

Yeah, but seriously, Dell getting into the music biz and coming back with a DJ Ditty 2.0?

How do you compete in a market where the iPod and iPod Touch have so much market share? I mean it's so bad, you hardly ever see car stereos (OEM and after-market) touting anything but iPod connectivity, and what about the tons of stuff out there already cradling the iPod? You can't walk into Target without seeing a clock-radio with iPod connectivity, or a TV with iPod connectivity, etc. How does Dell convince manufacturers that Dell's PMPs also deserves supporting products?

Hey if Michael Dell can make it work, awesome - high risk, high rewards, right?

[DrtyDogg]

A product can still be profitable without a huge market share. See OS X.

[SlimGem]

The best thing to happen to Steve Jobs was to get ousted from Apple. He then went on to develop Next, which would give birth to OS X. He learned well during his time away from Apple. Michael Dell and most of these others are one trick ponies. They couldn't innovate their way out of a paper bag.