Monday, July 24,2006 @ 8:40am
Dell CEO takes swipes at Apple
In its annual shareholder meeting last Friday, Dell CEO Michael Dell took a few swipes at Apple, according to a new report. The CEO said that it has turned to MTV to help tackle Apple on the digital music front, but that Apple is not really a competitor in the PC market, despite recently posting nearly 16 percent growth in the US market, while Dell lagged behind at just over 6 percent growth. Answering a question on how he viewed competition from Apple, he replied: "Apple certainly has done a very nice job with their products. I think you're going to see a number of new, competitive dynamics in that market ...music services. We've been working with MTV, which has a new service called Urge. That's an exciting space that Apple has done well in, but I would be surprised if they are able to maintain the share they have today over the next ten or 20 years. In terms of competition with Apple (in PCs), our share numbers speak for themselves. Apple is growing, but is still not in the top five in share for computers."
For the second quarter in 2006, Apple was the No. 4 PC vendor in terms of marketshare in US behind Dell (34.2%), HP (20.1%), and Gateway (6.5%). The comments follow an earnings warning issued by the company after it said that it faces earnings shortfall of nearly 33 percent for the second quarter, saying it expects a profit of between 21 cents and 23 cents per share--short of the 32 cents per share expected by analysts.