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Follow The Leader (10/12/99)
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Another day, another instance of Dell copying Apple. Have you been keeping a running tally? Let's see, there's the brightly-colored easy-Internet PC for "cool" consumers coming out soon. Then there's the consumer-targeted laptop available in two colors. And don't forget the wireless networking option that showed up for Dell portables after Apple's AirPort grabbed all the headlines. For someone who once made such catty public comments about shutting Apple down and giving the money back to the stockholders, Michael Dell sure is flying his company a lot like the Cupertino mothership.
So what's the latest step in Mike Dell's copycat routine? Investments in flat-panel manufacturers. According to a CNET article, Dell and Samsung have closed a deal valued at $8.5 billion; Dell is investing $200 million in the Korean company to ensure that they get a "stable supply of flat-panel displays" for the next five years. If this whole scenario sounds just a wee bit familiar, don't worry-- it's not your synapses misfiring. Well, maybe it is, but more than likely you're just remembering back to last July, when Apple announced their own investment in Samsung, intended to keep Apple "on the cutting edge of flat panel display technology" and stocked with "an adequate supply of TFT-LCD displays." It only took Dell two and a half months to follow suit.
Granted, what Dell lacks in originality is made up in scale; Dell's $200 million investment eclipses Apple's $100 million one. And that's something we can admire about Mike Dell: you just have to respect somebody who blows a couple hundred million bucks so he can truthfully brag about how his "package" is twice as big as Steve Jobs'. (Oh, let's not go there...) So what's next on Dell's list of action items? How about fanless Pentium-based systems? Oh, how we love the smell of melted plastic in the morning...
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SceneLink (1840)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 10/12/99 episode: October 12, 1999: It's almost time for Apple's Q4 financial results-- so what'll happen to the stock price? Meanwhile, Dell continues to emulate Apple in every way it can, and rumors of Best Buy selling Macs again seem unlikely in the face of the store's corporate decision to stop selling Mac software...
Other scenes from that episode: 1839: The Logic Escapes Us (10/12/99) It never fails. If we're not mistaken, for the past seven consecutive profitable quarters, Apple has announced end-of-quarter results that exceeded Wall Street's expectations-- prompting an immediate and inexplicable reduction in Apple's stock price... 1841: Nightmare Scenarios (10/12/99) You've heard the rumors that Best Buy might be re-entering the Macintosh world, right? Yes, you heard us correctly. And yes, this is the same Best Buy that was the first chain out the door when Steve Jobs started eliminating ineffective national retailers from the sales list a couple of years ago...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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