Dell becoming the Apple of old?

[Gus]

For those of you who were around before the iMac, (the original, now deceased iMac), do you remember the 90's when Apple began making aall sorts of products-PDAs(Newton), printers(ImageWrier, LaserWriter, StyleWriter), cameras(QuickTakes), scanners (AppleScan),gaming consoles(Pippin), set-top boxes, MacTV, online services (eWorld), etc.? They had so many things going on that eventually they all started to be only so-so products. Well, it looks like Dell may be travelling down that same road. I saw this today:
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030325/D7Q0BOIG0.html

The only thing they need now is a scanner and a camera, and they would be old Apple. Do you think they can maintain all of these lines and keep them good products? This, of course, assumes they were good to begin with.
Do you think Apple should try these things again in order to give us peripherals that we KNOW will work with our Macs?

Just a few thoughts.

Regards,
Gus

[bbarnhart]

While Apple was innovating with the Newton, QuickTake, and LaserWriter products, Dell in enhancing its bottom line with more commodity products. These new products (printers, PDA) Dell is selling already have a marketplace and people interested in buying them. Apple was creating the marketplace.

[Eniregnat]

I think that the fundamental difference is/was that most of the products that Apple sold at the time were not badged versions made by other manufactures. Apple had spread its “developing” mind a little to far- so some say.

Now both sell products from other manufactures.

[timbloom]

Apple created products that were just ahead of their time and expensive, which caused them to end up losing money on them.

[Gus]

Actually, the Quicktake 200 WAS just a badged Apple product, but I see your point.

Regards,
Gus