Three Billion and Counting

Apple has now sold more than three billion songs on iTunes.   Thsi puts them past Target and Amazon as music sellers.  UNT Dallas student Ambrose came by with his iPhone yesterday and indeed it is just as cool as it appears in that tv ad.  A few years back Mike Dell suggeseted collapsing Apple and distributing proceeds to the shareholders, so much for his expertise on the high tech markets eh?

Comments

[RichardatDELL]

Michael has also explained on several occasions the context of that "joke," and Dell still sells more technology equipment to business and consumers than Apple...just as a point of clarification.

[Dennis Elam]

Apparently Dell Company scans for comments about their leader.

Apple has never sold as much computer equipment as whoever was in the lead and they have never really targeted that market, the commercial amrket that is. Instead, they have invented new markets, Michael.....

[RichardatDell]

Hi Dennis,
Thanks so much for the email follow up and your comments here. I very much appreciate your welcoming.

In fact, during the past year we have been really encouraged by the warm welcoming we have had around the web. That warm welcome has come at Direct2Dell.com (our blog),our Ideastorm site, our outreach to customers requiring tech support, as well as through our general involvement and conversations with folks on all kinds of matters related to Dell, not just comments about Michael Dell. So, I do want to thank you for the welcoming.

Listening and learning from the conversations around the web is very exciting and helpful. Won't it be great when we get a chance to welcome other companies as they choose to become part of the conversations. You and I can look forward to together welcoming Apple when they choose to blog and/or allow employees to blog :-).

I really agree with you about Apple's Ipod as a great product (I think Michael Dell has publicly said something similar to that as well). Apple really has done a beautiful job with the Ipod not just as a product, but also as you pointed out with the software and market innovation that achieved new music markets that even the music industry had failed to really come to grips with. Kudos to them for this for sure!

...and how the iphone shakes out, only time will tell on that one. I think some of google's wireless moves are of equal interest on the phone front...but we will see, I suspect something will revolutionize that market soon.

Back to the original discussion about the Ipod and innovation, think its also fair to suggest that Apple's Ipod also did a brilliant job in tethering folks through the hardware, software and store to Apple...a little bit of a counter-intuitive approach to the web and high tech markets tendencies to trend towards "openness."

I just think that if we want to talk about the Ipod, "expertise in the high tech market" or even "inventing new markets," then of course, the Ipod is a great innovation and demonstration of expertise. No doubt. But lets also remember that Dell helped revolutionize the industry on which the Ipod is built.

For more than 20 years, Dell's direct model contributed to making IT more powerful, accessible and affordable, as well as customized and personalized.

In this respect, Dell also broke new ground and innovated in terms of e-commerce, creating one of the largest and most successful e-commerce sites....again, something the Ipod relies on.

Dell's emphasis on open industry standards has fostered the ability of people and businesses to connect, communicate and share.....all with a view to improving business and personal lives. Again, this helped networks and people connect, do more and want to do even more

Im not suggesting that Dell was a sole contributor, just one of many players that have revolutionized IT and our network connections so that the Ipod could in fact exist today

So, not to take away from the Ipod....like I said, I agree with you...its brilliant in all respects.

I just cant agree that in the same breath somehow Michael Dell, our company or a lot of other people in tech field should be "pooh poohed" in terms of their many and various contributions to today's buregoning successes in high tech markets. The innovation, high tech expertise, the impact of making more technology more accessible to more people, our ability to make technologies talk to each other, and even the invention of new markets came from a lot of people and companies. And, Steve Jobs is one of them. He built beautifully upon what many others helped put in place....lets share the credit on this in manner that gives credit where credit is due.