Apple is worth ten times more than Dell. Think about that.

That must be sweet for Apple CEO Steve Jobs, especially since Michael Dell once famously said if he ran Apple, he’d shut it down and return what was left of its value to shareholders. That was in 1997 when Jobs returned to lead a struggling Apple and Dell, with his direct sales PC behemoth, was on top of the world. Now that the roles have reversed, some say Mr. Dell should eat his words.

Stock blogger Cody Willard points out that not only does Apple blow Dell out of the water in current market cap ($310 billion to $30 billion), but Apple and Jobs are much more popular than Dell on Google as well—a very important metric. Simply put, stockholders view Apple as the cool, sleek company that they want to hitch their wagon to while Dell has videos like this floating around.

So, Dell over the past few years of struggles has regrouped. Rather than try to spar with Jobs for the consumer market, it looks like Dell has done what would have been unthinkable years ago (until recently) resource: The channel. Dell has invested a lot into its PartnerDirect program since 2007 and made a lot of partners happy with higher margins and new incentives.

This may be part of the puzzle for Dell to get back into the game against Apple, which has had its own troubled relationship with the channel.

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