Apple vs. Dell: the victory of marketing leadership over operational excellence?

Is the bell tolling for process-intensive (Dell, Home Depot, Amazon, Wal Mart, HP, Ikea, etc.), top of the class in operations, companies? Why have marketing-dept. driven companies (Apple, Nescafé, American Express, l´Oréal) so strongly gained momentum in the recent months?

Take the Dell-Apple bullfight. Check this MacDailyNews article. Ceteris paribus, Apple computers (laptops & desktops) now appear to be less expensive than Dells (see an example here, in Spanish but easy to pick up).

As a reminder, Apple´s market cap has been topping the one of Dell since the early days of May 2006.

Furthermore, Apple blows Dell away at the Google fight (see picture below).