Dell, Jobs engaging in a little trash talk
Computer legends' rivalry, grudges seem to grow with industry's age
By John Markoff
The New York Times
Monday, May 21, 2001
SAN FRANCISCO — They represent the rival styles of the graying personal computer industry, and they don't seem to like each other very much.
In one corner stands 46-year-old Steve Jobs, co-founder and chairman of Apple Computer Inc., the former prodigy who in 1977 introduced the Apple II, the machine that dominated the first generation of personal computing.
In the other corner is Michael Dell, 36, founder and chairman of Dell Computer Corp., who as a college student in the 1980s took the anti-Apple machine — the Intel-Microsoft-based PC — and began revolutionizing the way desktop computers were sold.
But beyond their longstanding business rivalry, the two men seem to harbor a highly personal grudge, which has only intensified as the personal computer industry has started showing its age.
A few years ago, Dell derided Apple by saying that its shareholders would be better served if the company were to close its doors and they put their money in mutual funds. Jobs retaliated by drawing a bull's-eye over a picture of Dell's face onstage at a Macworld exhibition, and announced that he was coming after Dell and his customers.
The trash talk has continued.
Just last month, Dell, touring the United States and Australia, repeatedly predicted Apple's doom.
This month, Jobs, noting that "Michael Dell has been saying some disparaging things about us," used a boxy portable Dell computer as a foil to show off the features of Apple's sleek new iBook. Jobs vowed that the new laptop would enable his company to recapture the lead in the school market from Dell.
Some say all this counterpunching is best explained by the fact that the industrial era that the two men did much to create is ending.
"There's nothing like a downturn in the computer industry to turn sunshine boys into grumpy old men," said Richard Shaffer, a veteran industry analyst who is publisher of the Computer Letter newsletter.
Accustomed to 20 percent or higher growth rates the past several decades, the U.S. personal computer industry has actually shrunk the past two quarters.
Computer executives are hoping that the downturn is merely cyclical. But many industry analysts predict that the industry will never grow as quickly as it did in the past, driven first by the spread of the home computer and then the Internet boom. And they say maybe that is what is eating at Jobs and Dell.
Although both men are the stuff of industry legend, they have little in common other than each having inspired young entrepreneurs ever since they founded their respective companies as remarkably young men: Jobs, at 21, in his parents' garage in Los Altos, Calif., in 1976; Dell, at 19, from his University of Texas dorm room in 1984.
But their differences are vast.
"They represent very different generations," said David Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School who has closely followed the computer industry.
Jobs is a child of the 1960s and '70s, who once dated folk singer Joan Baez and even now speaks fondly of the counterculture.
Dell, who came of age in the Reagan '80s, is the quintessential Republican businessman.
A vocal supporter of George W. Bush's presidential campaign who contributed $266,000 to the party and the campaign last year, Dell has figured prominently in Bush's technology advisory meetings since the election. Jobs was a supporter of Bill Clinton, a White House guest who slept in the Lincoln bedroom and returned the favor by letting Clinton stay in a mansion Jobs owns in Woodside, Calif., when Clinton visited his daughter at Stanford.
People who know both Dell and Jobs say they are also very different types of executives.
"Michael has been a pioneer in shaping how people buy," said Andrew Heller, a former IBM computer designer who is an investor in Austin, where Dell's company is based. It is Dell Computer that has refined the logistics and inventory-control methods of selling computers by telephone and online, assembling each machine and shipping it within hours of the customer's order.
"Steve's brilliance has been in determining what people want to buy," Heller said of Jobs. He thought a moment and added, "Michael is now a very stable executive, while Steve has remained mercurial."
As Dell has grown into the consummate high-technology manager, marshaling his troops as effectively as they regiment Dell's just-in-time factories, Jobs has remained a notorious anti-manager. He has often said that he focuses more on leadership than on management. Management, he has argued, tends to be about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could.
Compare that philosophy with the advice Dell dispensed in his 1999 autobiographical business strategy book "Direct From Dell," in which he wrote, "Mobilize your people around a common goal."
Yoffie, the business professor, said each executive probably recognizes the other's strengths.
"There probably is a little bit of envy on both sides," Yoffie said. "Dell has never been as creative in industrial design or on the leading edge as Apple. And Apple has got to be envious of Dell's business model. Market growth has eluded Apple for a decade."
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