Anonymous

USA

Project Systems Manager

Apple does contract out much of their manufacturing, true. However, so does Dell.

As such, why should Apple bother to go through Dell as a "Middle Man"? This intermediate step would only increase costs, which would then either lower Apple's unit profits, or force them to raise prices ... which hearkens the 'Macs cost more' paradigm.

Overall, Gartner's suggestion seems to be more aimed to help Dell through their current fiscal troubles but does not help Apple in any meaningful way at this time.

Perhaps Apple will need Dell for Dell's assemblers, but that would only occur when Apple's total market share exceeds 33%. Barring a Vista-catastrophy, at the current rate of market share growth, we're still more than a year or two away from having to cross that bridge, which gives Michael Dell plenty of time to become more retrospective and apologetic about inflammatory comments he has made of Apple in the past.

-hh