Ten years ago, Dell was virtually the king of the computer Industry, and from that throne, Michael Dell made a brash remark at ITxpo97. He was asked what he would do if he were the CEO of Apple:

“What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.” (link)

Obviously making a statemtent like that has the potential to come back and bite you, especially when making it about a company that had been so important to its industry. Although Apple’s resurgence can largely be attributed to the success of the iPod and their trendy, aesthetically pleasing designs, major improvements were made in the hardware and software platforms. The first step was the upgrade from OS 9.x to OS X, and a few years later that was followed by the announcement that all Apple computers would use Intel microproccessors.

In the last 10 years, Dell has become stale and Apple has become stylish, and while I don’t imagine Steve Jobs will make suggest that Dell shut down, he might suggest that Dell take a look at some of the creative and innovative moves that his company has made in the last 10 years.