Apple Passes $300B Market Cap, 2nd In the World 485
An anonymous reader writes "In May, Apple surpassed Microsoft in market capitalization to become the second largest company (by that measure) in the world. Today, with its shares riding high, Apple passed $300 billion in market cap, entering a club of two along with the still-gigantic ExxonMobile. And investors' targets could bring Apple beyond where Exxon is now (though Exxon continues to soar as well). Perhaps Wall Street is catching on that, despite the discontinuation of their underused Xserve, Apple is in fact becoming one of the key tech providers to enterprise, a position that even a year ago seemed laughable. If you consider the iPad to be a PC (which enterprise increasingly is), then suddenly you realize that Apple is expected to climb to 12% market share in 2011. Plus, of course, they have those little things called iPods, and iTunes..."
Once it was said: (Score:5, Interesting)
"We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose." --Steve Jobs
All Apple had to do was stop trying to climb the fence to play in Microsofts yard, and apply some ingenuity to marketing and manufacturing. They've done well in these regards. You don't need to be an iFanboi to tip your hat here.
Apple will never replace Microsoft in the workplace, because they don't want to, there's not nearly as much money in it as replacing Microsoft in the home.
Re:Once it was said: (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple will never replace Microsoft in the workplace, because they don't want to, there's not nearly as much money in it as replacing Microsoft in the home.
Yeah.. but from the summary:
Perhaps Wall Street is catching on that, despite the discontinuation of their underused Xserve, Apple is in fact becoming one of the key tech providers to enterprise, a position that even a year ago seemed laughable.
That made me actually read the article and it does not really indicate that Apple has anything earth shattering for enterprise at all. I have not really heard anything either, hence the quietly I guess. All it talks about is how enterprise is "figuring out" how to integrate the iPad. I hardly see that as providing key technology to enterprise which is exactly what the summary and article claims.
Re: (Score:3)
Apple will never replace Microsoft in the workplace, because they don't want to, there's not nearly as much money in it as replacing Microsoft in the home.
Yeah.. but from the summary:
Perhaps Wall Street is catching on that, despite the discontinuation of their underused Xserve, Apple is in fact becoming one of the key tech providers to enterprise, a position that even a year ago seemed laughable.
That made me actually read the article and it does not really indicate that Apple has anything earth shattering for enterprise at all. I have not really heard anything either, hence the quietly I guess. All it talks about is how enterprise is "figuring out" how to integrate the iPad. I hardly see that as providing key technology to enterprise which is exactly what the summary and article claims.
They have some "earth shattering" stuff, (compared to Microsoft) when it comes to the server market. But, as you noticed, the "underused" part is where the problem currently lies. IBM had hard drives since the 1950's. Pretty earth shattering - but it didn't mean a darn thing in the computer world - not for years to come.
Slowly, Apple makes inroads into various markets, and is largely succeeding in numerous of them (smartphones, tablets) while being profitable (yet making inroads much much slower) into othe
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
How is that a troll? People used to buy Apple Workgroup Servers only because making a PC be a Macintosh server was difficult by design; as proof I give you NeXT's ability to deal with Windows and even Novell shares at a time when the Mac couldn't even speak to a Lan Manager server with additional software (pre-Dave.) Then they bought Xserves because they were actually good. Then Apple cancelled them. Further, OSX still has less remote management goodness than Windows. And only the newest macs (only some hig
Re: (Score:3)
And only the newest macs (only some high-end macs newer than Xserves) actually have WoL support.
I have a 2007 MBP that supports WOL. Go to System Preferences... Energy Saver... and click "wake for Ethernet network access". I found this article from 2006 discussing it so it's been there for awhile. http://www.mackb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/mac/16622/using-a-Macbook-Pro-headless-with-the-lid-closed [mackb.com]
Now if you're trying to do this with an XServe, I'd ask "why?" But nevertheless it is also available on XServes http://images.apple.com/xserve/pdf/Xserve-Environmental-Report.pdf [apple.com] page 3.
Re:Once it was said: (Score:5, Insightful)
All it talks about is how enterprise is "figuring out" how to integrate the iPad. I hardly see that as providing key technology to enterprise which is exactly what the summary and article claims.
iPad buying has become a frenzy. Companies are making them fit all kinds of places they don't fit well so that they can look forward-thinking by following everyone else.
Re: (Score:3)
Apple will never replace Microsoft in the workplace, because they don't want to, there's not nearly as much money in it as replacing Microsoft in the home.
Except that they're not, not really. At least on browser stats Windows is still in the 90%+ range. The iPod wasn't aimed at anything MS had. The iPhone wasn't aimed at anything MS had. Perhaps the iPad, but even that doesn't replace the PC, it makes for a good viewing board but most people will need something with a keyboard. If Apple really wanted to replace Microsoft they'd have to change their Mac lineup considerably, drop prices and go for volume. It doesn't help to compare like for like when you can ge
Re:Once it was said: (Score:4, Interesting)
Except that they're not, not really. At least on browser stats Windows is still in the 90%+ range.
And your statement there actually pretty well covers what he meant. Windows is so high on browser stats because they're used in business everywhere –same reason IE 6 is still high on browser stats. By comparison, apple grabs say 10-15% of the home market (yes, it's a guess, but probably not far off), and more importantly, grabs 60-70% of the profit that can be had from the home market.
That's called apple winning without MS needing to lose.
Re:Once it was said: (Score:5, Insightful)
If Apple one day decides to take that it now has the resources, it can and it will and the Microsoft of today stands no chance of stopping it.
What about Office, Visual Studio, the .NET Framework (LINQ, WPF, WCF, ADO.NET, etc, etc, all designed for business), legacy applications and documents, Active Directory, the ability to run it on hardware by the lowest bidder, etc,
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Active Directory Do you mean their ever changing NETBIOS/NETBEUI implementation (with "lotsa shit" cobbled on top)? That too is dependent on them NOT losing marketshare in the server arena.
Actually, it's responsible for them not losing marketshare in the server arena. Microsoft gives you the most complete single-vendor enterprise management package save for TME10 on top of your IBM kit, or whatever it's being called these days; when I worked for Tivoli a single sale could be as much as $10M.
Yes, you are correct that it is diminishing their decline in the server arena. Sorry I wasnt clear. My point was that it becomes less relevant and WILL lose market share as they lose marketshare in the server arena because of other reasons. So, while it may be slowing the migration off Windows server, it sure isn't stopping it. And since people are moving off Windows server for reasons other than Active Directory, it too will suffer due to that.
Regardless, as already mentioned, there are alternatives, such as OpenDirectory and SAMBA (I know a few businesses who dumped their Windows server and simply use a Linux box with a SAMBA server running).
You can't do half the cool stuff you can do with a Windows server with SAMBA. SUS comes to mind immediately.
True. And most Windows Server users dont do that stuff even w
Re: (Score:3)
I wonder which that are... until earlier this year I was doing consulting in quite a few companies, and it was all Exchange, except two who were migrating off Lotus Notes to Exchange and trying very hard to forget that. Not seen a single instance of OpenOffice either, on the server side it varies but the desktops have inevitably been Windows/Office/Exchange. At least in the good news Firefox has been there instead of or as an alternative to IE, but that's about it.
Yes, Exchange is the only software group that is not seeing a decline in marketshare. But, it is dependent on their server market. You can't run an Exchange server on Linux. So, that marketshare maintenance or gain will slowly erode away unless they can prevent their marketshare losses in other areas.
Though I was modded troll above, I actually researched the stuff. Windows marketshare is slipping slowly, with gains by Apple (and on again/off again gains by Linux). Office marketshare has decline 20 percenta
Re: (Score:3)
Microsoft has been trying to get into the media in the home position for 10+ years now and it has been a long string of minor temporary successes interspersed with epic fails. Media center PC - FAIL, epic FAIL. Why - just look at an original XP media center remote and the answer is there. It has Live TV and DVD on it. NO OPTION FOR RECORDED MEDIA. Yes, that is the way the media companies would like us to consume it. That is however a guaranteed market fail for the product. No wonder that a significant proportion of these are hooked up to MythTV and DIY media center boxes running Linux nowdays. Compared to that Apple remotes worked out of the box and they were designed to deliver what the customer wanted day one. In its early days (and for some people it is still the case) iTunes was more about organising pirated media collections and not buying more iStuff and it did that job brilliantly regardless of what the media corps say.
Do you even have a fucking clue as to what you are talking about?
Just because there isn't a button that says "OMG CLICK TO WATCH RECORDED TV", doesn't mean the function isn't there, right in your face, inside the 10 foot UI. Also, I wouldn't cite windows XP as all MS has done in the Media Center market. Go ahead, head on over to AVSforum's HTPC area ( http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26 [avsforum.com] ). The Audio Video Science forum is one of the most informational sites for all types of A/V setups
Re:Once it was said: (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you serious? Only a true hater would remotely contend that Apple somehow stole the standard they initiated.
IEEE 1394 was initiated by Apple (in 1986[2]) and developed by the IEEE P1394 Working Group, largely driven by contributions from Apple, although major contributions were also made by engineers from Texas Instruments, Sony, Digital Equipment Corporation, IBM, and INMOS/SGS Thomson (now STMicroelectronics).
I'll ignore the tired Xerox argument.
They didn't steal FireWire, they initiated it.
Contrast Apple's track record to Microsofts blatant 'wait until the competitor makes something good, then copy it badly'.
Ever notice the Window Phone guy looks just a little bit like the Android guy? They aren't even original with stupid cartoon brand identity!
Without dividends... (Score:5, Insightful)
Buying stock in a company that doesn't pay dividends is just gambling - you're buying in the hope that you can find a chump who'll pay more to buy it off you at some point in the future. You can only make money by selling the stock. Apple isn't unique in this regard: most major tech companies and oil drilling companies don't pay dividends. But to me it just looks like a house of cards. You're just gambling on investor confidence in a company.
Re: (Score:3)
Well it's a bit more complex than that. Your post makes it sound like the company valuation is totally arbitrary, that's not actually the case. How the company is valued in the future will depend on whether it experiences growth, whether it's products continue to be successful in the marketplace, etc, as well as simply attitudes about it.
Apple has had huge growth over the last 10 years. So people that bought the stock a while ago were betting that the company would be more successful in the future than when
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Without dividends... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, it is totally arbitrary. The market cap is the number of shares times share price. The share price is whatever you can get someone to buy it for. It theoretically moves based on company performance, but there's no rules requiring it to. And it moves on rumor as much as on information. Hell, you have people at CNBC, the home of the wall street cheerleaders association speculating if the market will move based on how new york teams do in the playoffs. Yeah, sounds like it's really based on performance.
If you buy a stock for anything other than its dividend, you're investing in the world's biggest ponzi scheme. You may be willing to pay a premium if you think the company can grow it's dividend, but the only thing worth investing for is the yield and it's ability to maintain that yield.
Re:Without dividends... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it is totally arbitrary.
When you are talking about the 2nd largest company in the world, no it isn't.
Sure there are some stocks that have a high price just based on hype and not much else (the tech bubble taught us that).
But you do not get to a $300B stock without real metrics showing real growth and success. Apple has that. No other stock in Apple's class is pure hype.
Re: (Score:3)
Says the person with no perspective! Look back 20 years, you find a dozen companies that exceeded $200 Billion in market cap and are now worth significantly less if they are still around. In fact the best example is Cisco. Topped out with the highest market cap in the market during the dotcom bomb, had real earnings, real growth and much larger sales than Ap
Re: (Score:3)
This is the very definition of a Ponzi scheme- later investors paying for old ones to get out.
Woah woah, hugely wrong comparison there.
A ponzi scheme is where you have the goods of the early investors paid for by the payments of the later ones, it's a scheme that eventually collapses because there are not enough goods (can be investments, money or something else) to go around for everyone.
When you buy a stock and then resell it later, one person is transferring the same good (a stock) to another person for
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on the stock really. Would you consider a buying stock in a company like Berkshire Hathaway (which also doesn't pay a dividend) to be gambling? Personlly, I'd rather put my money in BRK-A rather that AAPL.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd consider them both fairly risky. Both are cults of personality built around their CEO. When they die/step down (and Buffet is old) the stock will tank.
Re:Without dividends... (Score:4, Insightful)
Except Apple is more exposed to the whims of fashion and personal choice. Berkshire Hathaway, on the other hand, is a huge conglomerate/holding company. They can survive the loss of the head guy. With Apple, I'm not so sure about that.
Re: (Score:2)
. But to me it just looks like a house of cards. You're just gambling on investor confidence in a company.
I don't think folks have confidence in Apple. They have confidence in Steve Jobs, because like him or not, he has always delivered over the years.
Now, if he goes into a hospital for a pimple on his butt, or an ingrown toenail, that stock is going to tank really fast.
It would be nice if he could mentor a protege. Just so folks would know how things will continue when he's gone.
Re: (Score:3)
It would be nice if he could mentor a protege. Just so folks would know how things will continue when he's gone.
That's been going on with Tim Cook for years. Tim is in a pretty good position to take over Apple once Steve retires at this point. He already did briefly while Steve was out for surgery.
Redundant troll is redundant (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
> Why does someone have to be a "chump" to pay more for it?
Because they're not actually going to get any money outside of selling the stock to someone else (see also: "no dividends").
> Those earnings... do you realize they belong to the shareholders even if they just accumulate in the company's bank account?
Unless the company loses them, gets sued, goes bankrupt, spend it on a foolish merger with a company that has lots of debt, is involved in fraud, bad accounting, and lots of other risks I can't th
Re: (Score:2)
If you wanted to argue that, say, AMZN is overvalued that is an easier case to make. But seriously I can not think of a single profitable, growing, stable company that is as _stingily_ valued as apple.
Instead of hand-waving, why don't you actually tell us which smarter investments you have actually made that have fared better since before the dip. Keep in mind Apple was one
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd like to look at it in three ways.
1) Personally I see the dividend as the reason to invest at all, and as such it needs to pay out more than a bank account or you're stupid (?) since it's much riskier. Now people can of course pay more for the stock compared to the current earnings of the company because they assume earnings will improve in the future and hence give a reason to pay out a higher dividend by then.
2) Then we have the companies with lots of resources, either cash or invested in say buildings
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Buying stock in a company that doesn't pay dividends is just gambling - you're buying in the hope that you can find a chump who'll pay more to buy it off you at some point in the future. You can only make money by selling the stock. Apple isn't unique in this regard: most major tech companies and oil drilling companies don't pay dividends. But to me it just looks like a house of cards. You're just gambling on investor confidence in a company.
Why are these ignorant comments consistently modded +5 insightful? Did they stop teaching economics in High School?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_valuation
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I would say that buying Microsoft stock is an investment that you expect to make some return on in the form of dividends. Whether that's a sound investment is another thing entirely. It's not an absolute gamble as investing in Apple or Dell would be.
Re: (Score:3)
ummm no.
It just means the company you're investing in has decided to re-invest their profits into expansion. If their expansion plans succeed and is profitable the company will grow in value. If they piss it all away then the company doesn't grow and the stock does not increase in value.
Its no more of a gamble than investing in a company that pays dividends. The company pay dividends could just as easily fuck things up as a company that is growing. If that happens the company doesn't make a profit and you d
Re: (Score:2)
That makes about as much sense as saying someone investing in cash is gambling, you're putting it in the bank in the hope that you can find a chump who'll give you something more valuable for it at some point in the future. If you want dividends, sell a bit of your stock each year. I can assure you that the relation between stock price and dividends is 1:1, if you increase the dividends you lower the stock price and vice versa. Of course this means you'll be diluted, but that is natural since everyone else
Re: (Score:2)
Buying stock in a company that does pay dividends is buying stock in a company that literally has more cash than they know what to do with.
This is not good, long-term, if the company is a major player in a fast-moving technology sector. It means they have no vision for the future and no insights on how to leverage their own assets, so they're just "giving the money back to the stockholders," to quote Michael Dell's advice to Apple.
You have only to look at Microsoft under Ballmer for a perfect example of th
Re: (Score:2)
Time to sell.
It's been a good ride.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Without dividends... (Score:4, Interesting)
that's a bit far reaching. Using US dollars is gambling that the value won't tank overnight. In fact, holding money in anything (even gold) is gambling that whatever that thing is won't suddenly depreciate in value through no action of yours.
The management of a company are ultimately investors, they can either reinvest profits into new products and grow the company, or pay out to shareholders if they figure they can't do better than the shareholders with that money. The 'worth' of a company depends on how much it honestly discloses, revenue, profits,total assets, vs costs and liabilities, and then what you expect it to be worth when you want to sell it. Lets return to the US dollar analogy. If you get paid in dollars, you are hoping that the buying power of those dollars will be unchanged when you go to spend it. But a government that lies about its financial situation (Greece), or screw it up badly (US, UK, Ireland, Italy, Spain) can significantly (and sometimes relatively rapid) change the value of their currencies, in 12 months the EURO declined about 9% vs the dollar. The pound is down I think 91% since 1971, and more than that since pre WW2 (in the case of the pound there are even a handful of days where the government decided to revalue to pound overnight).
Apple is just a company with some revenue. Whether it's worth 300 billion dollars or not is up to potential investors to decide, but it has a revenue of 65 billion dollars or so and profits of ~14 billion, but that 14 billion reinvested in the company should provide more than what 14 billion dollars would provide if paid out as a dividend and invested by shareholders. You can read their public filings as much as anyone else. If you think they're lying, or the risk of them lying (or pulling a BP and getting themselves on the hook for 40 billion dollars) exceeds their ability to pay, then you probably don't want to buy.
So, as with any company, whether they pay a dividend or not. Do you think that if when you would want to sell shares, will it pay out (dividends + value of the sold shares) more than you could get else where, or less? Apple does shiny well, it's popular with lots of important people, and they're a market leader in several areas. I don't personally think they're worth 300 billion dollars, but i don't think gold is worth 1400 bucks an ounce either, but that's irrelevant, they're both worth something. The bernie madoff frauds of the world are supposed to 1, get caught, and 2 have their assets siezed (which impressively looks like ~50% of the money is going to be recovered so far).
Stock guys have to be good at figuring out where the market is going to move, regardless of so called 'fundamentals'. Is apple really worth 200 billion dollars? That's irrelevant, what matters is if people think it's going to be worth 200 or 300 billion, and moving your money accordingly based on when you're willing to sell. If you want to invest for the next 30 years, then apple by itself isn't a good plan anyway, hence you should you know... diversify.
Re: (Score:3)
I know other people have beaten this point to death, but Apple is a highly profitable company. They could issue dividends if that's what their shareholders wanted. Their P/E is around 20, so they would beat inflation. Their operating margins are in the 40% range, so if they shut down all their new R&D and marketing and all that stuff you don't seem to value, they could issue huge dividends (while they go out of business, of course, but you would still probably get back what you put in). The stock is
Re: (Score:3)
Mind you, fluctuations from irrational *pessimism* can temporarily drop a stock even below the floor of cash
Re:Without dividends... (Score:4, Informative)
lololololololololol [wikimedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
This looks like something from a Nokia fanboy, but it has some interesting numbers: http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/12/some-symbian-sanity-why-nokia-will-not-join-google-android-or-microsoft-phone-7.html [blogs.com]
"The analysts want to position Nokia against Apple, it makes for good drama and a fun parlor game. But then they don't do fair analysis of Nokia. Nokia is not competing against Apple. Nokia's business is the phones business. The PC industry sells about 300 million personal computers of
Re: (Score:3)
I'm sure they're quite fine with small market share and lion's share of profits... wouldn't you be OK with that?
Re:Without dividends... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or... Steve will get sick, leave the helm and the stock will tank.
Re: (Score:2)
And when you see how slimmer he gets by the day, it's not looking good.
Bought shares 10 years ago, dumped them end of december. Already made a fucktons of money on this, no point in trying to get 1 or 2 more dollars while risking a huge fall...
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
True, but Apple has nowhere to go but up. Apple is in a position of being absolutely unable to fail.
That's some mighty fine Koolaid you're drinking there.
It's interesting: last week I was looking through an old computer magazine from 1983 because someone on Slashdot asked about 8-bit computer prices and I had the magazine lying around in the basement. After that I noticed there was a review of the new Apple III, which pretty much said that it sucked, but the conclusion was along the lines of 'good or bad, people will buy it because it's from Apple'.
Clearly they were considered 'unable to fail' back then t
Re: (Score:2)
I think your sarcasm meter is busted.
From the GP:
Watches? Jewelry? Clearly he's joking.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I hate to break it to you... (Score:5, Insightful)
At least in 2009 (I haven't looked up 2010)
The Blackberry phones outsold iPhones (revenue and units sold) [gigaom.com] and as usual, Nokia dwarfs them all (in market share) [gigaom.com].
Granted Apple has done quite well in the MP3 player market, and with its excellent profit margin it is certainly an extremely successful company. But let's compare Apple (market cap $296 billion) to Exxon Mobil (market cap $377 billion).
Exxon Mobil's 2010 profits of $19 Billion on $285 Billion in revenue [cnn.com] completely dwarf Apple's 2010 profit of $6 billion on $36 billion in revenue [cnn.com]. Granted Apple has a higher profit margin than Exxon Mobil, but in 2009 [cnn.com] Exxon Mobil's profits were greater than Apple's revenue.
Both companies are certainly successful, but I suspect Apple's stock price has more to do with its image than its value.
Re:I hate to break it to you... (Score:4, Informative)
Exxon Mobil's 2010 profits of $19 Billion on $285 Billion in revenue [cnn.com] completely dwarf Apple's 2010 profit of $6 billion on $36 billion in revenue [cnn.com]. Granted Apple has a higher profit margin than Exxon Mobil, but in 2009 [cnn.com] Exxon Mobil's profits were greater than Apple's revenue.
Your numbers are _not_ 2010 numbers. You are comparing 2009 numbers. Maybe the fact that Apple's profit is now $14bn on $64bn revenue explains the share price.
Re: (Score:2)
True, but Apple has nowhere to go but up.
This is a piece of wisdow from the same pool as "Home/real estate prices never go down" about 2 years ago, eh?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I did mean drilling companies specifically. Energy and resource companies tend to pay dividends, but the companies that do actual drilling and resource exploration don't.
The iPod is going out, though. (Score:2)
As the iPhone and iPad continue to succeed, Apple neglects the original iPod more and more. Especially anything with a hard drive. I miss the days of dedicated music players.
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't call it neglect, per say. I would say "Trying not to one-up our own devices." Why drive down sales of your more-expensive-to-own products?
Re: (Score:3)
I don't.
I used to juggle an iPod Nano(and before that, some sort of Sansa player), a cell phone and a DS.
The only thing i have to say is...
"Specialization is for insects." -- Heinlein.
Or maybe it's even more hype (Score:4, Interesting)
Market capitalization is only one metric. There's also gross revenue (which Wal*mart wins) and net profit (which Exxon wins again). At current prices, AAPL still seems a bit overpriced compared to its peers.
Re: (Score:2)
Like what? The P/E ratio is still relatively low. (21.75 from quote.yahoo.com just now.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
21.75 is low? Try 13 for IBM or Microsoft, 11 for HP, etc. Now clearly they're not RedHat (100!), but still a bit overpriced. Remember back in late 1990s/early 2000s when the entire tech sector was in 20+ P/E territory? They were overvalued back then, and they all fell eventually.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Or maybe it's even more hype (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, MSFT is trading at an 11.86 P/E ration and Google at a 24.21, but MSFT despite all the ill will I personally have against them, has done a better job over time maintaining its income and I don't expect that to change any time soon.
You'd have to be an idiot to think that APPL is genuinely worth about double what MSFT is.
Re: (Score:3)
You'd have to be an idiot to think that APPL is genuinely worth about double what MSFT is.
Why? They have similar revenue, but Apple makes a much higher profit. Don't get me wrong, Microsoft still makes boatloads of money off of Windows and Office, but the compitition for them is Linux and OpenOffice/GoogleDocs. They will be constantly competing against free, which will keep squeezing their margins and therefore their revenue and their profit. Apple is in a position where they make hardware that allows them to charge a premium. Apple on the other hand, keeps very close to the leading edge an
If the future is now the iFuture (Score:2, Informative)
Market cap? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the same problem that sacked the mortgage market. The system is set up so that the bits of a company, called stock (or the mortgage) are entirely unconnected to the supposed underlying item of value, which is the company itself (building, property). With the stock market, people don't expect company dividends (anymore), and, even more bizarre, the supposed owners of the company aren't liable for any company crimes. Market capitalization is as meaningful as Twitter trends are.
That being said, it's interesting from a purely social point of view.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've always been a bit puzzled by why the owners of a company are so utterly sheltered from damage cause by or crimes committed by that company.
It gets waved away with claims like "well of course then people might not want to invest in those companies" which while true would also be the point.
If to protect themselves people demanded reasonable proof that a company was behaving ethically and within the law before investing in it then we might see companies breaking the law less and behaving more ethically.
If
Re: (Score:2)
You're not off scott free. If you're a shareholder in a company that causes everyone in a small town to get cancer because they're dumping pollutants in the water supply, your investment will drop in value when the class action suit gets certified and the company is looking at billions of dollars in payouts. All the incentive you need is there to actually examine the company and dump your stock if you fear they're misbehaving.
There's no proof available a priori that the company officers will act ethically
Re: (Score:3)
the difference in risk between investing in a company which has the potential to drop to zero value and a company which has the potential to drop to a massive negative value due to some really massive fuckup is zero.
So if you're going to take the risk on investing in a company which might get such down for shady dealings or might kill people might as well go for one which might kill a LOT of people since the potential payoff could be larger.
Re: (Score:2)
assuming that a company has more assets than debts the stocks have a theoretical lower limit to their value?
Re: (Score:2)
... and fanboys. (Score:5, Funny)
Especially fanboys.
Re: (Score:3)
In my 10 years of hearing the term fanboy (in regards to any product, not just Apple products), I've yet to hear somebody use it with convincing logic attached.
To me, if you use the term fanboy in your post, you are admitting defeat.
iRape (Score:2)
"The moment came Wednesday when Apple, the maker of iPods, iPhones and iPads, shot past Microsoft, the computer software giant, to become the world’s most valuable technology company."
Now the politicians, regulators etc will be looking for their pound (or two) of flesh.
Being #2 isn't so bad really.
Re: (Score:2)
Only if they're doing something illegal.
Yes MS had to pay a bunch of lobbyists to get regulators off their backs, but that was because they were actually breaking the law. They were illegally using their monopoly in the OS market to squeeze out competitors in other markets. We bitch about how bad IE is but we're damned lucky that MS let it stagnate so long. Otherwise we'd all be forced to use the Microsoft Internet, which could only be viewed with MS software that was copyrighted and patented to prevent any
Steve v. clones (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Other than selling hardware, I don't even know if there's any money to be made in enterprise datacenter iron. It looks expensive, but the costs to fulfill SLA support contracts must be hell.
Still though, I wouldn't say no to Xserves running newer Xeons running Lion Server.
Re: (Score:3)
What is Apple's Next Product? (Score:2)
A better bet to short for 2014? (Score:2, Interesting)
Apple has been sitting at (or around?) 4-5 billion in revenue for the better part of this last decade. They have great products, and a modest growth in sales each year, but as many have pointed out, most of the ipod/iphone sales are replacements, or selling to new (young) people just entering the market. Don't get me wrong, Apple sells fantasic products (I keep eyeing the iPad as a replacement to my dead-tree edition to the NYT), but IMO their sales will plateau soon unless the global market for Apple produ
Re: (Score:3)
You are insane if you think Apple stock will see 2009 prices again. And that's solely factoring in the smartphone growth that is EXPECTED, not counting the bonanza Verizon will bring them...
There is no plateau in sight, except possibly for desktop sales. Laptop sales are exploding, iPad sales are exploding, smartphone sales are exploding. Apple has strong products in each of those areas, and they are obviously not sitting still.
And as for "modest growth" I'm sure lots of other companies would kill for
Enterprise? (Score:2, Insightful)
If there's one thing Apple is not, it's enterprise. iPods, iPads, iPhones and even mac OS are all consumer-grade products designed with the aim to fuse gucci-like sex appeal with simple usability. Where does security, stability, and manageability fit into this? Selling style, luxury, and limited functionality (for the sake of ease of use) has always been Apple's niche and it's worlds away from enterprise-grade software and hardware.
Consider HP SANs or the Solaris operating system: these are highly-manage
Old News (Score:4, Insightful)
Where does security, stability, and manageability fit into this?
The thing is, those were never really that distinct from consumer needs. We have all seen what happened when the "enterprise grade" Windows was used by the world. It's pretty obvious the enterprise for all the bluster doesn't ACTUALLY require the level of security you call for, as much as they might wish for it.
Of utmost importance for enterprise users is security. It seems that Apple often botches this. Consider just the security problems with iPhones that have been discovered in the last year. We learned that iPhone email security is farcical and that their on-disk encryption doesn't really work
If you read to the bottom of your own link, FDE works in iSO4.x. The device is properly encrypted, and can be remote wiped as needed.
It's as good as any other device out there; better than most and I would argue better by far than Blackberry since company data doesn't have to go through a RIM server.
Dependability, too, is often not a feature of their products
Oh right, that's why the Apple consumer product ratings are so high. Because they are so "unreliable". Well sir then please explain how so many companies stick with POS Dell boxes that fail if you sneeze and sometimes if you don't. I know, I had to deal with them for years on end.
Your whole post is just so much trolling a view of Apple from way back in 2005 or so. It ignores the very real use of iPads across the enterprise, the substantial management features and Microsoft integration in place today. In short, it totally ignores the reality of modern IT departments and the needs of business units in real companies.
One last thought on Security (Score:5, Insightful)
If you mull it over, you'll realize that consumers actually require a HIGHER level of security than do enterprises. Enterprises can afford to be a little lax because they have full-time people dealing with security issues that arise, and maintain boxes.
Consumers have noen of that; they have only themselves. Would not the blood of any corporate IT manage run cold at the thought of a system that had to be maintained by a user, for years on end? But that is exactly what happens with hundreds of millions of consumers. Computing devices aimed at them must be FAR more solid and robust than any product targeting an enterprise, if they are to work well for any length of time.
Furthermore employees are a lot easier on equipment than a home user, a home user moves stuff around and takes it with them. Office equipment generally vegetates in one location, and is handled with more care.
And that is why the enterprise is starting to adopt Apple gear, because Apple has had to build software and hardware secure and robust enough for real world use, not coddled managed enterprise land. In the end business people want solutions to work and it simply cannot be overlooked anymore that Apple gear is providing real solutions that work for everyone.
Re:One last thought on Security (Score:5, Insightful)
Cite, please (from a non-Apple press release)? Because I call this complete and utter fiction.
Make no mistake, Apple has a "presence" in enterprise because a lot of people have iPhones (banned from connecting to the corporate email system unless you have the words "executive", "chief", or "vice" in your title), and iPods (banned from running iTunes or storing any form of media library on corporate PCs), and these people use them in and around (but unconnected with) their jobs.
But actual use by enterprise, I just don't see it. Apple occupies the same niche today in the corporate world as it has for the past 20 years - Sometimes the marketing folks will get a pass to use Macs at their job, which may or may not save them time, but at the cost of wasting IT's time when they need help converting to "real world" formats to send out-of-house three times a day.
Re: (Score:3)
Bullshit. All that separates corporate users from consumers is one commute period.
Nope, it's the fact that as I said consumers have no support staff. Otherwise you are correct, which reenforces my point.
A consumer can afford to be lax with their box because it'll only cost them a couple hundred bucks to replace or reformat if they blow it up.
You just totally ignored the cost of loss of data to a consumer which is far, far higher to them than to a business losing one server. Sure a company can lose million
My Apple Macbook experience... (Score:4, Insightful)
A friend asked me to help get their new Christmas MacBook Pro to print photos with a 8-yr-old Canon printer. First, I go to the Canon website looking for drivers. Canon doesn't have them for download for that model anymore, though, not even for Windows. Googling finds the 'download-driver' websites offering drivers...but they are for older OS versions and won't download without the obligatory 'signing up' etc. Frustrated, I plug the printer usb cable into the macbook and expect to see a pop-up screen about finding new hardware and where should it look for a new driver but...nothing. Click through to 'printers' and...it says the printer is not only recognized but ready to print. Yeah, sure. Click on the iPhoto app and select 4x6 borderless print and...in a few seconds out pops a beautiful print. I'd been so conditioned by the Windows way of doing things that I expected it not to work with OS X 10.5. What does this have to do with the TFA? Only that Apple has got it going on right now. Someone else might beat them but it won't be because Apple wasn't offering good products...the someone else will have to be offering much better products and that is going to be very, very difficult to do.
Re:My Apple Macbook experience... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple decided a long time ago when OS X was released) that they wanted to remove the "driver headache" as much as possible - so they ship a massive bunch of printer drivers with OS X, including drivers for ancient stuff (you can even use old LaserWriters), and if they don;t have a driver for it, there's a strong chance they can get it going under CUPS, which also ships ready to run. This does mean that you have 250-300MB of drivers sitting in /Library/Printers, but HD space is cheap, and you can delete them if you want to slim down your install (you can also choose to trim the list during install time if you do a fresh installation).
It's one of the many things I like about OS X. I can plug in a USB drive and have it mount right away, ready to use. Plug the same drive into a Windows box and it has to install something. It only takes a few seconds, but I'm unsure what it's doing - surely it's just a USB mass storage device? Plug in my other memory stick, from a different vendor, and it has to install something else!
Lots of little touches like this all across the OS make it nice to use. I have used Win 7, XP and Vista (ugh to Vista) and they work well enough - there's nothing wrong with them per se, when they're working fine, but I prefer OS X.
Re: (Score:3)
I have an NTFS volume mounted Read and Write on OS X - it is my bootcamp partition. When you set up bootcamp you can immediately read and write to the NTFS partition after the Windows install CD formats it. The NTFS driver is probably already on the system, but without an NTFS formatted disk to test it, I have no idea. You don;t need to install anything when you reboot into OS X though, after installing Windows - your NTFS partition is mounted right away. On the flip side, you don;t have access to your HFS+
Re:My Apple Macbook experience... (Score:4, Informative)
Obviously, novice users will see that they can plug in the NTFS-formatted drives from Windows and see the files, but not copy anything to it. I'm not sure how often this scenario would come up, though. In my experience, you'd deal with FAT32 far more often and that is fully supported by OS X out of the box.
In any case, once the user finds out the limitation, he/she can google and easily find that there's both a free (NTFS-3G) and paid (Paragon NTFS) way of getting write support. They've been out for quite some time and got polished, so it's not much of a hassle, either.
Re:My Apple Macbook experience... (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice isn't it? One year ago we bought a couple of macbook pros for some employees. Up until then, I haven't had much experience with apple computers. I entered the hostname of our high volume network printer, osx detected it propperly over the network and configured the appropriate drivers. It even detected the additionally installed hardware modules, a thing the vendor's driver for windows is not capable of (duh?).
Later i found out who is the main contributor of CUPS; Apple. The "Common Unix Printing System" is really really userfriendly once it gets the propper user interfaces and hardware detection (which OSX provides). CUPS with gnome is not bad but can't be compared to what OSX is capable of.
Cheers,
-S
Re:My Apple Macbook experience... (Score:4, Informative)
Technically Apple bought the company that developed CUPS, and they continue to manage it as an opensource project
Re: (Score:3)
Hey that's my mantra in the classroom over the past 15 years (I teach Education Technology at a community college). People who don't like Apple are generally trying to apply Windows logic to a device that doesn't work like Windows.
I had the exact same scenario (and it was even an old Canon printer) with my in-laws. They tried for 2 days to install drivers and software. I went over, plugged the printer into the computer, opened the file and printed it.
But you know, the "it just works" thing is all marketing
Ballmer (Score:3)
Hate to gloat, but ...
Hey Ballmer, How you like THEM Apples?
Gee, do you think they may be overvalued? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does anyone else remember when AOL had a market cap of $222 billion, because the Internet was the new big thing and AOL, with its acquisition of Netscape and Time Warner, was sure to dominate that space forever?
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/fortune/1002/gallery.biggest_losers.fortune/8.html
Yeah.
If Steve Jobs so much as sneezes Apple loses 20 percent of its market cap. Not because he's so essential, but because investors want to get out ahead of the gigantic Hype bubble deflating. We've seen this before. When will people learn?
Sometimes, the bigger they are the bigger they get (Score:4, Informative)
P/E for Apple is actually not all that high. What you are overlooking is that Apple's valuation is so high because they are doing great in :
a) media sales
b) portable music player sales
c) smartphone sales
d) laptop sales
e) tablet sales
The thing is that Apple has a lot of products in very new and rapidly growing markets. If you think about pretty much any one of those categories and think about room for growth, you'll realize the apple share price is still pretty conservative.
Oh, and don't forget about the massiv Apple cash reserve which they've not even deployed to any great extent.
Re:MS owns a big bite of Apple (Score:4, Informative)