Revenge is a dish best served cold.

- Klingon proverb

In 1997 at the Gartner Symposium and IT Expo in Orlando, Michael Dell, founder and CEO of the company that bears his name, was asked what he’d do if he was in charge of Apple Computer. Dell said sarcastically, “What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

After a month, Steve Jobs fired back: “We’re coming after you, you’re in our sights.”

It took Steve almost a decade, but early last year, Apple’s market value passed Dell’s, from Apple’s $72,132,428,843 vs. Dell’s $71,970,702,760 at market close of January 13, 2006.

As of market close yesterday, Apple Inc.’s value is officially double that of Dell Inc.: US$127.8 billion to US$63.65 billion.

Cold enough for you, Mike?

Apple’s posted its Q3 07 earnings, and here’s the Cliffs Notes version: Mac sales are up 33% (1.764 million Macintosh computers) and iPod sales are up 21% (9.815 million iPods) for the same quarter last year. iPhone sales are still forthcoming, but we all know that story, right? In numbers, it breaks down to US$5.41 billion revenue. Interesting side note is that international sales accounts for 40% of the figure. When the iPhone starts to sell outside the US later this year, it’ll be straight As.

Actual report card here.

Newly released data from NPD Group, a major global market research company, shows that Apple notebooks accounted for nearly 10% of notebook retail sales for the month of March in the United States, with MacBooks and MacBook Pros combined.

The list omits direct sellers (like Dell, which doesn’t do retail). Apple Insider reports that the NPD Group list puts Apple’s retail sales topped at 9.9%, while Compaq hit 8.5% and Gateway 13%. Top of the chart is Toshiba at 26.2%, then HP at 23.9% This is actually a bit down from earlier in the year, when Apple did 10.1%.

In desktop retail sales, Apple broke into the top five for the first time this year, hitting 7.7%. Top dog here was HP with 35%, followed by a tight trio composed of Compaq, Gateway and eMachines, at 16.7%, 16.6% and 16.4% respectively, then Apple.