Dell on the rise

I thought I wrote a blog about how Apple and Dell shares were priced strange, but apparently, I didn't.

Well, last month, I was suprised to learn that Dell prices went into a freefall after then-CEO Kevin Rollins quit, forcing Michael Dell to resume the role. Well, Dell has been getting smack even prior to that. HP retook the role as #1 PC maker. The market for desktops continues to be cannibalized. Dell kept missing its filings.

Dell's death march has been running around for years.
Is Dell Dying? What's wrong with America's greatest computer company. By Daniel Gross

On the other hand, everybody loved Apple. It has iPods. It has iTunes. It has a cool, computer unit, especially it's laptop offerings. What I never did like about Apple is that most of its products relied on not what the company is doing right, but how its competitors keep messing up.

Take the iPod. There hasn't been any credible challengers to the iPod because most other companies approach mp3 players as a computing device (more memory, faster processor) or a technological jewellery (Smaller, twisty-butons.) That's nice, but mp3 players are a piece of consumer electronics. iPods are good because of their usablity. In reality, you can get a similiarly equiped mp3 player for 20%-50% less.
And no matter how cool the new Intel-Macs are, they still only occupy about 5% of the market.

The biggest shock was market cap. AAPL is now almost $30 billion more than DELL. AAPL is great, but not $30 billion more than the world's second largest PC maker. Incidentally, all this time Dell still enjoys superior ROI compare to its competitors. They're just have a really bad year with a bunch of PR stuff.

I am glad to hear that Dell is bouncing back. But, I am changing my mind again. I am not reading any concrete plan of action that addresses many of the concerns most people are having about Dell. So we'll see.