Michael Dell Should Eat His Words, Apple Chief Suggests


By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: January 16, 2006
Correction Appended

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15 - It may not be the last laugh, but on Friday afternoon, after the close of the stock market, Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive of Apple Computer, shared an e-mail chuckle with his employees at the expense of Dell, a big rival.

The message was prompted by the 12 percent surge in Apple's stock price last week, which pushed the company's market capitalization to $72.13 billion, passing Dell's value of $71.97 billion.

In 1997, shortly after Mr. Jobs returned to Apple, the company he helped start in 1976, Dell's founder and chairman, Michael S. Dell, was asked at a technology conference what might be done to fix Apple, then deeply troubled financially.

"What would I do?" Mr. Dell said to an audience of several thousand information technology managers. "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."
Dell executives did not return calls over the weekend asking for comment on Apple's rising fortunes.

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Mr. Dell appears to have softened his views on Apple recently. In June, he responded to an e-mail inquiry from Fortune.com and said that Dell would consider putting Apple's OS X operating system on its machines if Apple ever decided to sell it separately from its hardware.

Although Mr. Jobs has recently shifted some gears and last week introduced his first computer based on chips from Intel, which are also used in Dell machines, it does not appear that selling the operating system separately is in his plans.