October 6, 1997: Michael Dell offers Guidance for Apple Executives

by Chris Seibold Oct 06, 2010

Gil Amelio had recently been ousted and Apple was in the midst of a search for its next CEO.

While the search was on, Apple asked Steve Jobs to step up his involvement. Not all industry insiders thought having Steve around was a good idea, they rightly feared that Mr. Jobs' presence would scare away many potential candidates.

Michael Dell was in the "Steve won't help camp" and, when asked what he thought Apple should do, he replied, "What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

Mr. Dell's quote was made at an industry conference on October 6, 1997.

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  • Ironic, Dell just shut down the last of its US based manufacturing yesterday and is now no more unique than any other PC box assembler out there. 

    At one time Dell made decent machines that were highly serviceable, backed by excellent customer service.  Today the Dell logo will be slapped on any old piece of crap that competes in the low to no margin market.

    If any company should heed their own advice, it should be Dell.

    cwa107 had this to say on Oct 08, 2009 Posts: 15

  • Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island. It’s not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex. -Instant Tax Solutions

    InstantTaxSolutions had this to say on Aug 08, 2011 Posts: 10
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