Okay, so remember a couple of weeks ago when Dell CEO Kevin Rollins dissed Apple by attributing the company's comeback to the iPod, which he called a "fad" and a "one-product wonder"? Yup, ol' Kev disparagingly likened the iPod to the Walkman, a flash-in-the-pan product if ever we've seen one-- why, it only took two measly decades for the Walkman fad to fade, and of course once it did, we never heard of that "Sony" company ever again. (On a related note, we'd like to take this opportunity to make a little public service announcement. Attention, whoever sells Kevin Rollins his crack: you're either giving him way too much or not nearly enough. Check the dosage.)

While he never really expressly says so, it's pretty clear in the Silicon.com article we referenced that Kevin's utter dismissal of the iPod (and the Mac mini) stems from his feeling that innovation and design really don't matter. In fact, Mike Dell has almost flat-out said so on occasion, and in a sense they're both right: Dell makes its money by cranking out cheap boxes in insane volumes and pricing the competition right out of the business; innovation costs money and reduces economies of scale, so it only stands in the way of the Wal-Mart approach. But if history is any indication, that strategy won't necessarily work forever.

Check it out: faithful viewer Brett Burnside dished us a BusinessWeek article that draws an interesting analogy between the computer market and the history of the automotive industry. Whereas Ford's all-black, all-the-same, mass-market Model Ts used to rule the roost, eventually consumers "began to take cars' basic functions for granted" and "started seeking a little pizzazz in their vehicles." Before long, cars that catered to consumers' sense of style overtook Ford's automotive equivalent of the Beige Box-- and apparently "a similar shift is looming in the home computer market." After all, people don't buy all their tech strictly by price and spec sheets, or else the iPod would probably be dead last in sales instead of way out in front. So who's to say that consumers won't soon become a little more discriminating and opt for the slick Mac mini instead of whatever bolted-together monstrosity that Dell's pushing for a hundred bucks less?

Incidentally, analyst Rob Enderle's almost incessant cluelessness about all things Apple probably comes from wearing the same blinders that Dell's bigwigs have clamped onto their heads. Faithful viewer David Silberman just pointed out that Enderle recently said the following about Windows XP: "I don't love it, but it does what I need it to do, which is all I really ask for in a tool." Now that's a ringing endorsement, hmmmm? (Obligatory Enderle insult: as far as tools go, it takes one to know one.) So Rob and Kevin and Mike Dell still see computers and operating systems as "tools," which is why they think they should be cheap and commoditized as long as they're marginally effective. Mac users, on the other hand, have long known that it's far more rewarding to use a computer that we do love, and that love stems from design, innovation, attention to detail, and yes, style. Enderle must understand that on some absurdly primitive level, because if computers really are just "tools" to him, he wouldn't be using a Ferrari-branded laptop that goes "vroom, vroom."

Granted, most of this is totally moot in the business market, which is where Dell really makes its money anyway, so the company's not exactly about to wither away and die just because it might lose a few share points to Apple in the consumer market over the long haul. But we do look forward to the day when consumers at large stop thinking of computers solely as "tools" and start attaching a little more importance to how a PC can actually make them smile. Because that'll be the day when Apple's market share really starts to climb.