Apple Surpasses Microsoft In Market Capitalization 557
je ne sais quoi writes "Today Apple surpassed Microsoft in market capitalization, a metric of the perceived worth of a company. At around 2:30 pm EDT, the total number of Apple shares were worth $227 billion, whereas Microsoft's were worth $226 billion. Both companies' stocks ended the day in the red, and have dropped in value since the Greek crisis began, but Apple's share price has been falling less quickly. Of American companies, only Exxon-Mobil has a higher market cap at this point at $278 billion. According to the article: 'This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in business history, as Apple had been given up for dead only a decade earlier. But the rapidly rising value attached to Apple by investors also heralds a cultural shift: Consumer tastes have overtaken the needs of business as the leading force shaping technology.'"
So close... (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumer tastes have overtaken the perceived needs of business as the leading force shaping technology.
There, fixed that for you. The day of the PHB making decisions based on the novelty of the promo mugs and pens they just received is coming to an end. Thank god.
Re:So close... (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumer tastes have overtaken the perceived needs of business as the leading force shaping technology.
There, fixed that for you. The day of the PHB making decisions based on the novelty of the promo mugs and pens they just received is coming to an end. Thank god.
That's pretty funny, and it seems like you actually believe it, too.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There, fixed that for you. The day of the PHB making decisions based on the novelty of the promo mugs and pens they just received is coming to an end. Thank god.
That's pretty funny, and it seems like you actually believe it, too.
Seems pretty accurate to me. Companies that operate that way might hang on for a bit longer, but their days are definitely numbered.
Re:So close... (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in my younger, stupider days, I got an MBA. One of my professors once asked me the question, "Have you ever seen a dog eat its own penis?"
I responded "No", at which point the professor told me that, yes, I had seen a dog eat its own penis. He then explained to me how America's middle management had sold it out and destroyed its economy due to stupid decisions based not on need, but perceived need created solely by marketeers.
Back then, he was referring to management's decision to ship heavy manufacturing overseas. Today, we see it happening with high technology. But the effect is the same; America the Dog has eaten its own penis, in effect. It has destroyed its ability to reproduce wealth, and as a result it is suffering economically.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Further, a dog licking his anus is akin to lobbyists courting Congressmen.
Re:So close... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps eatings its own offspring might suffice?
I think the farming metaphor would be "eating the seed corn". (I'm not sure if it's quite the same metaphor, but it at least has the advantage of not being horrifying to think about)
Re:So close... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And since 2007, all we have is facebook, twitter, complex mobile devices, always connected lifestyles, and as much Apple fanfare as MS had in 1997--except it's now all about you (iUniverse and stuff-aboutMe. All dictated by consumers... Do you really want this?
Absolutely, yes. I'm a consumer, not a business. I think it's absolutely wonderful that the driving force in tech is now consumer oriented and not business oriented. I would be happy (but less so) where the driving force Android or Linux. Less so only because both serve the consumer less capably, but at least they aren't as business-centric as MS, or IBM before them.
Cause what you're asking for may not end up being the great panacea you maybe thinking (and with Apple's closed, exploitative thinking...)
It's far better than having MS drive the market, as they have always been far more closed and exploitative than Apple. In fact, Apple is not ex
Re:So close... (Score:4, Interesting)
For my company, the answer is a bit more clear cut. They have money invested in MS. ALOT of money, both in infrastructure, and client software. They also fear Open Source (that one puzzled me when I first heard it). They don't fear it because it's open, but rather because it comes from a group of people who may or may not be responsive to their needs. They actually find comfort in getting legal contracts for support, and working with a 'known' vendor.
Oddly enough, the iPhone itself seems to be making them more comfortable with Apple in the corporate world. They are already looking at the iPad (the execs seem to love the thing), and they've opened up limited usage for Mac, although they still support those via yet another outside vendor rather than our in-house IT shop.
It actually takes more hoops to get FOSS approved in our environment than it does for pay to play software.
I think I speak for us all when I say... (Score:5, Funny)
...and?
Re:I think I speak for us all when I say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I think I speak for us all when I say... (Score:5, Insightful)
And... we're still using the borg icon for Microsoft and yet using the actual Apple logo. Maybe we can get some update graphics on the site?
Re:I think I speak for us all when I say... (Score:5, Funny)
The borg icon is ok for Microsoft. The Apple icon should be changed to something like this [thepensivecitadel.com]
Re:I think I speak for us all when I say... (Score:5, Funny)
Steve ballmer with devil ears is already being used for BSD so we are stuck with Borg Gates until MSFT folds or a new CEO is put into place.
Re:I think I speak for us all when I say... (Score:5, Funny)
Steve ballmer with devil ears is already being used for BSD so we are stuck with Borg Gates until MSFT folds or a new CEO is put into place.
I thought that the BSD logo was just Ballmer without his makeup on.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And..."That's it then".
Game, set and match.
All Windows users are expected to start turning in their computers at 0800 tomorrow. And while you're waiting for your assigned Apple content delivery device to be delivered, here's a little song for you by the great Ray Davies:
Dedicated Follower of Fashion
They seek him here, they seek him there,
His clothes are loud, but never square.
It will make or break him so he's got to buy the best,
'Cause he's a dedicated follower of fashion.
And when he does his little
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ladies and gentlemen: (Score:4, Funny)
A basic level of human decency, probably
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
On /. ???
Re:ladies and gentlemen: (Score:5, Informative)
On /. ???
Compared to 4chan this place is a model of civilised behaviour.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ladies and gentlemen: (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I just simplified after my house got destroyed last year and took the old G5 quadcore out along with 6 Mac Mini's I picked up cheap off ebay to play with Xgrid with and just bought a single Core2Duo Mac Mini with 4GB of Ram and hooked it up to the LED TV via the VGA port. My laptop at home is still my 6 year old 12.1" PowerBook G4, and recently an iPad 3G. At work I just gave my MBP to the new grad we hired as a developer (kid's worked for us for 2 years as an intern) and replaced it with an iPad dockin
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And that's really the point.
When it comes down to it, I use outlook(email, calendering) MS Office,( word processing but I prefer Open Office personally) a PDF viewer,and the front end for our database server.(runs over SSH).
If apple were to fix the stupid document handling(itunes is not a file manager media syncs' work ok but documents?) I could easily fit an ipad into my work flow.
Re:ladies and gentlemen: (Score:4, Informative)
> Printing support may come as a part of the iPhone OS 4.0 SDK. If not, Google's Cloud Print Service could fill the gap.
In the old days we called this vaporware.
> The iPad is such a good 3D game platform that Nintendo declared Apple the enemy of the future.
Way to completely misrepresent what they said.
> The iPad itself is a solid media player, but you can also hook it up to your TV with Component or VGA cables.
No it isn't. IT IS A JOKE. It can play a subset of one format and nothing else.
That includes the video that your still camera can generate that you think you will
get somewhere by using the "camera connection kit".
Doing anything but multi-touch parlour trick apps with an iThing requires considerable "stretching".
It's time to stop swimming in the cool-aid. The nonsense about printing (and the fanboy excuses)
are especially sad since Apple even went out of it's way to BUY the Unix printing subsystem.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I watch Movies and TV shows all the time on my iPad, it's a great portable media player for the bedroom, kitchen, or on a plane.... at home with basically any format using AirVideo, or over an internet connection via Netflix, or (of course) iTunes. While flying Virgin America recently I could basically use the airplane's WiFi and watch any Netflix show I wanted instead of the crappy in-flight options.
The recent update of Netflix also added support for the video out cable.
It's a pretty good portable media
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That blindered view of the world is fine so long as you don't have
anything like DVDs or home movies or old DIVX files or really
interesting h264 files lying around.
Much like iTunes, it does well if you start out with it and don't
try to deal with any legacy data. Deviate in the slighted from
Apple's assumption that you will stay inside of their walled
garden and things deteriate quite rapidly. iTunes loses it's
mind dealing with shell scripts and rock ridge translation
tables.
Apples are fine if you are willing to
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I work with a company that would dissolve themselves and the CEO would commit seppeku before we consider OSX.
Er, why? I've used Linux for development, and I've used MacOS/X for development, and there really isn't that much difference between the two. (Granted, we're using Qt for our program's underlying API; is it Cocoa in particular that you dislike?)
Watch out (Score:5, Funny)
Please don't tell the Apple fanboys about this, or we'll never hear the end of it.
Re:It's so sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's so sad (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Serious question: Windows had fanboys? I always figured Windows was for people who didn't care (I mean that in the nicest possible way).
Strangely enough, yes. They were people who had grown up knowing only MS-DOS, and therefore thought that Windows 95 was alien future technology. They'd heard of Macs but never used one, and of course they had no idea what an Amiga was.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Now if Sarah Palin converts to Scientology and buys a Mac...
Re:Watch out (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't just "look like" the OS X desktop. Limbaugh is a long-time Mac user and evangelist.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
at least one of the things he's evangelizing actually exists.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Growth (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Growth (Score:5, Insightful)
"Microsoft hasn't really been growing for a decade" is only true in the broader, "hahahahahaha" sense:
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/download/Yearly%20Income%20Statements.xls [microsoft.com]
Deciding just how much they grew is sort of a difficult exercise, as both 2000 and 2009 had 'interesting' business events, but the low end argument is that they increased earnings by $5 billion, which is about 50% of their 2000 income. It is also about 80% of Google's earnings (which is an interesting comparison, because Google is widely hailed as a success, whereas people often say that Microsoft hasn't don much).
It wouldn't be insane to argue that they increased income by $7 billion, a 100% increase over their 1999 earnings, and it wouldn't be shocking to see them back near $18 billion for 2010 (they have already reported $14 billion of income), which is a $9 billion increase over 2000.
Of course, none of those numbers account for inflation.
So really, what happened is that Apple grew a whole bunch more.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
True, Apple's P/E is 20.69 versus Microsoft's 12.96 which means people are buying more into Apple's future than Microsoft. However, it's not that much either. Microsoft is about even with IBM (11.98), while Apple is about even with Oracle (19.58). If you want something that's more speculative you have for example Yahoo (27.74) or Red Hat (64.12).
I think the market is fairly right too. Microsoft is feeling the pressure on their margins from cheap low-end computers that just can't have a OS doubling the price
Re:Growth (Score:4, Informative)
Dell Computers, HP Computers, ipads, iphones, Gateways, all made by Foxconn and friends.
Apple doesn't really make anything.
Re:Growth (Score:4, Informative)
Xbox, Zune, Keyboard, Mice. Nah, Microsoft doesn't make anything real.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Whereas Apple has
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
heya,
Hmm, even for me, I have to say that's a bit cynical, mate...seriously....
It's also a completely ludicrous idea. Firstly, it'll take what, 20-30 years before African is up to American levels of consumption. If even then. And over those 20-30 years, you've have ploughed in more money than you could ever hope to possibly claim back.
Yeah, I don't have any more love for Bill Gates than the next man, in terms of shonky business practices and dodgy make-money schemes, but if you read what's been said, and wa
Re:Growth (Score:5, Funny)
Not that I completely disagree, but I find detracting from actual good works a little distasteful, regardless of the possible motivations. I mean, I am convinced their work on finding a cure for AIDs is a ploy to get victims more expendable cash to bolster their Zune sales, but I don't go around saying it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Um, no. When you own stock, you own a part of the company. As in, you own a part of a real company that is designing and building things and making money. That has intrinsic value independently of the dividends. To say stock that doesn't pay dividends doesn't have value is equivalent to saying this gold bar is worthless because it doesn't pay dividends. Both stock and the gold bar have value in the future because they represent actual wealth.
Whether a company's profits go towards increasing the stock price
Re:Growth (Score:5, Informative)
The reason fast growing companies don't pay dividends is because shareholders don't want them. The reasons they don't want them are:
1) Dividends are taxed as ordinary income, which by the time you figure typical state taxes is about double the rate for long term cap gains.
2) If the company has a use for the money (eg mergers, or even just stockpiling for future downturns) then it's better for the shareholders to keep the cash in the corporation than to be forced to raise money through borrowing, or dilution at times when the stock is weaker.
3) Shareholders want to choose when they take their profits/income.
The shareholders literally, legally, OWN the company. It is more than simply a game of betting which way the share price will move although many people look at it that way.
When you look at an established company with good profitability but shaky prospects for future growth - case in point, MSFT, that is when shareholders will demand a dividend. If the stock isn't going up and the company can't find efective ways to reinvest its profits, then the shareholders will want a periodic return. AAPL shareholders are expecting more from the company right now and you'd have been a fool to bet against them at any time in the last 12 years or so. That's not saying it goes up forever but AAPL has so much cash and such a broad product portfolio that it's not the kind of thing that can go out of business without a seriously protracted unwinding.
And your notion that it's only a matter of having a sufficiently long time frame is patently false. Never mind that this only can happen if the entirety of the company's assets are liquidated to satisfy its debts... what if they are acquired in whole? I suppose you would argue that the acquiring entity eventually will fail, etc ad infinitum. Well that's entropy for ya - heat death of the universe. So what? Should nobody invest then? Should successful growing companies all pay dividends instead of using that money to expand operations?
Why don't you invest in such companies while the rest of us hold our AAPL. Sounds like you've got an angle!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"You either have no idea how equities actually work or you are being deliberately obtuse. Do you think huge companies just instantly vanish in some random event that nobody can predict? No."
Yes. See Pan Am, aka Pan American Airlines. A terrorist blew up one of their 747s over Lockerbie, Scotland. *because it was over a tiny scrap of land* the maritime rules for liability limitation didn't apply, and Pan Am got sued out of existence (think US$200m *per passenger*. If they'd been over water, the maximum l
Re:Growth (Score:5, Informative)
Apple really is an insanely profitable company. Their margins are sky-high and the volume is high enough to get the top-tier of economies of scale. They pull in billions of dollars of actual cash profit per quarter. The P/E is about 20, which isn't astronomical (less than twice Microsoft's). This isn't some dot-com speculation-- Apple really is performing phenomenally well financially.
Re:Their profit margin is LOWER than Microsoft's (Score:4, Informative)
Bubble (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like an excellent bubble to take advantage of. Sell (or short) Apple, buy Microsoft.
Re:Bubble (Score:4, Interesting)
[Citation Needed]
This article [seekingalpha.com] may not be completely solid financial data, but makes more sense than the populist reactionary stance you take:
Re:Bubble (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks like an excellent bubble to take advantage of. Sell (or short) Apple, buy Microsoft.
The thing is, with near 10% unemployment and having just come out of the worst financial crisis since the great depression, Apple is doing well.
If a company that specializes in expensive, high-end computer products is doing well in a weak economy... what happens when the economy improves?
Re:Bubble (Score:5, Insightful)
You might be more right with Microsoft, since their p/e ratio is at 13, which is what you would expect from a consistent company with few chances at becoming more profitable in the future. If you feel Microsoft has good growth potential, you should invest in them, because their stock will probably go up. Personally I don't feel confident in their growth potential, and see some medium level downside risks (for example, the revenue from Office has dropped in the last few years, but they've managed to keep profits up by raising the price of Windows. But with netbooks, it may be hard to keep the price of Windows high).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Being heavily consumer products driven now, Apple is very susceptible to a sudden shift in purchasing behavior. This year's hot commodity, is next years' rubick's cube or legwarmers -- 'that's so 2010!' or 'i already have one'.
I'd agree with you completely on this if it weren't for one thing: since the return of Steve Jobs, Apple has consistently and repeatedly delivered products that people want and are willing to pay a premium for.
Okay, okay, you're right--there was the G4 Cube but that was an exception to the overall rule and it proves that even if one product happens to tank, Apple can shrug it off and come up with something else.
OK, let the flame wars begin... (Score:4, Funny)
Apple is now officialy THE ENEMY here at slashdot. M$ is just another bad guy now.
Re:OK, let the flame wars begin... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're just being short sighted if you don't consider smart-phones and tablet devices to be computer equipment. It's not even at that level of when your teacher would say 15 years ago "You know your wrist watch has a computer in it!" - no, these things have general purpose input capabilities, general purpose programs and installable 3rd party applications. They're computers. Just because they don't have a keyboard, mouse, and separate monitor that doesn't change.
Re:OK, let the flame wars begin... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're just being short sighted if you don't consider smart-phones and tablet devices to be computer equipment.
Before the iphone, nobody would have considered a non-user-programmable phone a smart-phone, same thing with pda's, tablets etc
no, these things have general purpose input capabilities, general purpose programs and installable 3rd party applications
Without jailbreaking? or requiring cash for the apple development kit and abiding by their rules? apple has set back general purpose computing more than any other company, what they are great at, is making 'appliances'.
Re:OK, let the flame wars begin... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's funny how this new status appeared at exactly the same time as Apple's newly found controlling and assholish nature.
Re:OK, let the flame wars begin... (Score:5, Informative)
newly found controlling and assholish nature.
Newly found? The "look and feel" lawsuit started in 1988, and led to FSF's Apple boycott.
Back then they lost. Today they would have patented everything and won. Or possibly even won without patents; copyright on computer software is much broader than it was in the 80's.
Yeah consumers! (Score:4, Interesting)
The only thing this tells me is that investors are very slightly more confident in Apple's future.
Apple has a good business model for the current market, a vertically integrated company is well suited for fluctuation during violent market turns because investors worry less about shortages, missed financial targets and product competition. Microsoft is *hardly* moved by this in reality, though, and still makes most of their money on business licensing - and they are doing fine. MS employees are still having the private jet weddings to the caribbean with ice fountains flowing with rum.
if Apple gadgets are the future of computing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Aww, that's nice... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Aww, that's nice... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Aww, that's nice... (Score:4, Funny)
Complex numbers? Imaginary numbers? You need to get an iLife.
Re:Aww, that's nice... (Score:4, Funny)
Mathematics is all fun and games until someone loses an i.
P/E Ratio (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's PE ratio is also 2x of MSFT, Walmart, IBM, GE, XOM etc...
It was ten years ago today, all my tech stocks... (Score:4, Insightful)
"It was ten years ago today, all my tech stocks blew away,
they've been going in and out of style, but you're guaranteed to lose a pile"
apologies to Sir Paul...
But seriously, folks, this is a bubble price. Like the $656,565 valuation on that crappy three-room clapboard box-house that you almost bought in Fresno three years ago. *I hope that you passed that one by*.
Bubbles exist in markets. When they burst, the people who believed that the price was a realistic valuation lose most if not all of their money.
Now is the time to sell your Apple stock. EXXON owns the world's energy supply: Apple owns some coolness. Is Apple the second most valuable company in the world behind Exxon?
No f***ing way.
A lot of people lost a lot of money believing in tech stocks ten years ago. Heed their lesson.
Re:It was ten years ago today, all my tech stocks. (Score:5, Informative)
Um, Apple generates billions of dollars in profits each quarter as well. Sorry, what was your point?
Re:It was ten years ago today, all my tech stocks. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Perception.
Exxon, MS, IBM et al. all have real products with real continuous revenue streams. Apple has a very carefully crafted image, Apple's perceived value is around Apples potential for growth, Exxon's perceived value is around Exxon having
Only for VERY foolish investors (Score:4, Insightful)
Only foolish (lowercase f) investors believe market capitalization (or number of shares times share price) is meaningfull as any real metric of the value of a company or it's stock. It can be a valuable indicator of a company that's price is way to high though (usually because of stupid investors).
Let me give in you an example, it's a test I call the Walmart Test. Walmart does billions in revenue a year and make billions in profit, they are a highly successful business with solid growth in earnings every quarter, reliable profits and has a massive book value (the total value of assets). At the peak of the Dotcom era Cisco had a market capitalization that was the highest on the stock market, close to 500B IIRC. This exceeded the Walmart Market cap by more than 5 times (~76Billion IIRC) and edged GE by several dozen Billion. Even if every dollar of revenue for Cisco was profit and that profit was passed directly to shareholders they weren't even a 1/5th of the earnings per share Walmart was making. In the ideal world all profit from the enterprise passes onto the stockholder, in fact that's the basis of the worth, the promise of future dividends for companies that are reinvesting capital rather than paying a dividend (but that's another lecture all together)
Because Cisco was valued so much higher than Walmart with significantly less earnings it was apparent that the stock was highly overvalued. Later at the dot-boom correction Cisco lost nearly 90% of their market capitalization (falling to less than 10Billion from 500Billion). That translated into a decline in price of the stock by about 90%. The same can be said for Apple, compared against real (boring) companies making solid profits they are extremely overvalued. Even if Apple were to grow sales 100% a year for 5 years they still couldn't match Microsofts actual profits. If you are looking for a long time short Apple is your game boys and girls. It's going to correct some day and it's going to be a brutal correction.
This over-valuation is quite common in tech stocks, people invest in companies whose products they like (terrible investment strategy BTW). Stocks of this nature are almost 100% over valued and when they correct due to bad news it's a very vivid correction. Beta on these stocks can be 3-5 because of the casual investor who panics at the bad news, that and the stocks usually have high short percentages that will exacerbate a drop.
The lesson of this post People is don't invest based on meaningless metrics and in tech stocks with rabid fan-bases that invest in the company. They are almost always over priced, and react much faster to negative news with the potential for much larger declines in the price. Put simply the market cap of Apple should scare you away from investing in it easily.
Re:Only for VERY foolish investors (Score:5, Interesting)
I see your point, but I'm not sure the current situation is analogous to the dot-com bubble.
Apple's stock has little momentum. It's not in a bubble in the classical sense. Apple's earnings ratio (20.6) is reasonable given their earnings growth of the last few years. Although Apple's stock has a higher earnings ratio than Microsoft's, that's because of anticipated future earnings and not fanboys driving up the price.
Here are their actual profits, from finance.yahoo.com, as of today:
MSFT:
Net Income Avl to Common (ttm): 17.29B
AAPL:
Net Income Avl to Common (ttm): 10.81B
If Apple grew their profits by 100% for even a single year, they would surpass Microsoft.
I don't entirely agree.
Don't get me wrong, Apple could easily collapse in value. Not because they're in a bubble, but because they make profits from having cool/aesthetic/etc products. But cool is fleeting. As a result, Apple's profits are less certain than Microsoft's. If Apple puts out a few crappy products, their stock will drop like a rock. On the other hand, if Microsoft puts out a few crappy products, people will buy them anyway, and Microsoft will just release a new version in a few years.
Re:Only for VERY foolish investors (Score:5, Funny)
On the other hand, if Microsoft puts out a few crappy products, people will buy them anyway,
What do you mean "if"???
Only VERY foolish investors....would listen to YOU (Score:5, Informative)
Really? Let's see:
Microsoft - Year ending December 31, 2009, Net Income $16.26 Billion on Revenues of $58.69 Billion
Apple Inc. - Year ending December 31, 2009, Net Income $7.477 Billion on Revenues of $42.05 Billion
According to you, if Apple grew sales 100% per year for 5 years, over that period they'd earn $16.26 billion in net income on revenues of more than $1.3 Trillion. Let's assume Apple's net income remains 17.78% of revenue. On sales of $1.303 Trillion, they'd show net income of $231 billion, not $16.26 billion as you assert.
We're supposed to take any part of your post seriously? You're spouting bullshit in such an authoritative manner you'd be right at home behind the anchor desk of Fox News.
Re:Only for VERY foolish investors (Score:4, Informative)
Can you say TROLL? (Score:5, Insightful)
This "story" is either an intentional troll or it was posted by someone who has no clue.
Market capitalization means dick in the overall scheme of things, especially since it can change at the drop of a hat. Changing of the guard? What the hell does market capitalization have to do with that? It might mean something if you had two companies who compete in exactly the same market segments, but Apple and MS only compete in a couple.
You can't compare Apple to Microsoft unless you specify what market segment your talking about. Going strictly by market capitalization alone is idiotic. You might as well compare Boeing to Walmart and then claim there is a changing of the guard.
Re:Can you say TROLL? (Score:4, Informative)
Mod parent up. Market capitalization is nothing more than perceived value by those who play the stock market gambling game. It's driven by a combination of factors, including the falling Euro, the Greek disaster, and the Gulf oil spill, all which have nothing to do with Apple. I suppose it gives Apple some bragging rights for awhile, but it doesn't have much to do with the real world. Microsoft isn't selling iPhones or marketing music. Apple isn't marketing Microsoft Office.
For historical comparison... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wolfram|Alpha is great.
According to that excellent tool [wolframalpha.com], Apple was valued higher than Microsoft through the '80s, as high as 3.2x as much as Microsoft. Then, right around the turn of the decade to 1990, Microsoft pulled ahead.
By 1998, Microsoft was worth 100x Apple.
Now, they're back up to even.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
All this means (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that AAPL is grossly overvalued. Especially when you consider price to earnings and return on equity. Microsoft sells 8 billion more per year than Apple (59 bn vs 51 bn), and keeps a larger percentage of it as profit. Sales growth has also been greater for MSFT than for AAPL. And Microsoft pays a dividend to boot, Apple doesn't.
But I guess like everything else Apple, it's no surprise that their stock is overpriced as well. Feel free to buy it.
Another Slashdot editing failure: Greek not greek (Score:3, Informative)
Greek. Mod me troll, offtopic, whatever. Getting something like this wrong is a big deal. It is not a greek crisis, but a Greek crisis. It is a crisis of the national government of Greece. Moreover, since "greek" is rarely used as an adjective on Slashdot, it reads too easily as "geek" which is a common adjective here, so the submitter and editor would need to be extra careful to avoid confusion.
Yet another instance where an editor worth their salt would perform their appointed duties and correct submitted text, but a Slashdot editor fails to do so.
Microsoft lost its vision (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the high point in the history of Microsoft was when they released Windows 2000. Here was an operating system that multi-tasked well, had perfected integrated networking and didn't blue screen. I remember a lot of people who had been using Redhat 9, which was crap, switched back to Microsoft and noticed that it didn't crash that much and they were pretty happy using it.
Then came WindowsXP and IE6, which gave everybody pretty much everything they wanted in an OS. It was easily pirateable and spread all over the world.
Then came malware, botnets, and the ensuing security disaster of science fiction proportions and Microsoft spent the next 10 years plugging security holes. Those were the big feature with Vista and Windows 7 remember-- more secure. This was all the fault of Microsoft demanding that unmanaged x86 code with full access to the win32 api run everywhere. It's an enormous, outlandish security hole just waiting to happen.
Meanwhile, I went to visit a relative in the hospital and all the computers are running Win2k. If you look at OS share online, WinXP still dominates. Nobody really knows what's new in Office 2010, except you can read Office 2010 files and that ribbon thing. China was a total disaster for Microsoft too. They even shared their source code and it's only 1 percent of their revenue.
Meanwhile Apple and Linux really got their act together and improved massively. Then the 3g and portable device boom happened and Microsoft was caught with Windows Mobile, in the face of Android and Iphone. They couldn't leverage their massive x86 code base and had to start over with a new OS from scratch. That's their problem, they have to start over on a new chipset and they just can't get anywhere meaningful without relying on the enormous barrier to entry that is the win32 api legacy.
Not trying to lay flame bait but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I'd argue MS has done anything different than they always have, just seen a lot more press on Apple and rather dubious strong-arm moves. For example
http://www.sevensidedcube.net/business/2010/apple-investigated-for-abuse-of-power-in-the-online-music-market/ [sevensidedcube.net]
Horserace (Score:3, Insightful)
So we have the latest news on the competition between a nefarious closed-source near monopoly on the one hand, and a nefarious closed-source and closed-platform wannabe monopoly on the other hand.
As Henry Kissinger said during the Iran-Iraq war, "Too bad they can't both lose."
Does this mean we no longer like Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do we now prefer Microsoft to Apple now? Last I knew Slashdot likes the underdog.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Steve calm down.
I'm sure you guys'll release Windows 7+1 and bounce right back.
*snicker*
Re:Give me a break (Score:5, Insightful)
At least Microsoft can program an OS, unlike Apple who had to get Unix, since there old OS sucked worse than Win3.0
Ability to code an OS may be nice to brag about, but your customers can't care less. They appreciate only results, and if you build your product from best components users like that.
There are thousands of computer manufacturers in the world and only ten or so OS kernel manufacturers (if you count all Linux flavors as one.) Years ago it was common for a manufacturer to build their own OS (and I worked for one such company) but eventually they saw the light and migrated to a supported commercial RTOS, just because it was so much better, and cheaper too.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You come a long way (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple tries it on but they simply don't carry the industry clout that say MS had/has, but the same tactics are shown on a more micro perspective. Granted all IT vendors pull the same crap. Its only when MS does it the ground shakes.
Not to me. Apple hasn't actually actively tried to destroy other companies yet.
Adobe? Amazon? Google (indirectly)?
And they haven't held back the industry for years (ie6, windows, office).
Because they haven't been a position too, but if they were with the product range they have/had, they would of held it back more. Limiting technologies to simplify them to be easy-to-use is primarily what Apple does. This simplicity has a weltering weakness, simple means less flexible.
They don't have such an important tie in (music is movable now, iphone apps aren't so important).
No, but they'd like to, iPad's marks an attempt at print media world. Using connections to Murdoch to help sell it.
They are still not dominant where it counts (desktop/laptops).
They are one brand among many, this wont change any time soon.
Apple haven't used dirty tactics to get what they want (threatening PC manufactures who included more than one OS).
No, they create FUD instead. http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ [apple.com]. Their price gouging stint on Amazon is another.
Apple haven't done any of the abuses that Microsoft was convicted and let off for.
Microsoft got ass raped by the EU, but if you think about the SUSE incident or the Netscape battles, Apple does just as bad or is doing just as bad to Adobe at present.
Apple are big on the consumer side, not on the business side (mores the shame).
Because they simplify and limit things too much, their attempts at introducing things into the business world have been a failure because of the lack of versatility. Not to say Microsoft is the most flexible (I'm a Linux person) but it's considerably better.
Re:LOL (Score:5, Interesting)
Call me when Apple's PE ratio gets back down to 14 or so. Then maybe I'd buy it.
Apple's income last year $5.7B. IBM's income last year $13.4B. Apple's PE is 22, IBM's is 12. And IBM pays a dividend rather than back dating options for Steve Jobs
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Good luck with that. Apple's been a growth company for the last decade and seems to intend to remain so. IBM isn't a growth company, it's in utility mode for more than 20 years turning good dividends but not trying to take over the world. As a result, Apple has more cash on hand today than 3x the entire value of the company 10 years ago and no debt. As a growth company that doesn't dominate most of the segments it's in, Apple's upside potential is huge.
IBM is still a strong conservative investment for
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While I agree with your point that P:E is a lagging indicator that does not accurately reflect the future growth of the company, some may argue that past earnings are a pretty good predictor of future earnings....
(Hell, if hedge funds_really_ agreed with the statement that 'past performance is no indication of future returns' they would identify their mos
Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm wondering if Microsoft has simply plateaued. Yes, they'll sell lots of the flagship products, but I suspect for the most part these are people buying new computers and/or upgrading Windows or Office installs. There's a point at which growth is going to stall out, which is why Microsoft has burned considerable amounts of money trying to branch out, and burned money they have. How much money have they blown on the Xbox, on the rebranding of MSN every four or five years, on Zune?
I'm no fan of Apple, but where Microsoft seems at times like a crazed octopus just wildly flinging out its arms trying to hit on the next BIG THING, Apple has taken a much more disciplined approach, and for the most part over the last decade has simply kicked ass. Jobs has steered the company in an extremely profitable direction, translating Apple's hardware expertise into product niches that exploded. There was a time when Gates was that good at reading the market, but Ballmer is just a mean-spirited one-dimensional bean counter (to be fair, even Gates screwed up plenty, nearly missing the growing importance of the Internet, but Microsoft had the sheer dominance to push out a horrible OS with the worst TCP/IP layer in history and sell it). Jobs is a monopolistic megolomaniacal whackjob, but he goes got a good market compass.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, because then they're not as elite anymore because Apple is all mainstream. An analogy:
It's like when that band is followed by shaggy-haired, goateed art school graduates in faux homeless clothing, but then the band becomes popular and all the shaggy-haired goateed art school graduates in faux homeless clothing get mad because they "sold out."
Only instead of a band it's Apple.
And instead of shaggy-haired, goateed art school graduates in faux homeless cl
Re:so what? (Score:5, Funny)
So what, you ask? Everyone thought Apple was dead a decade ago. Little did they know that Steve Jobs was merely pining for the fjords. And now he has reached the fjords and waved to Microsoft on the way by. Tie this in to Steve Jobs recent statement that he will reveal something surprising at the upcoming WWDC keynote, and this indicates that Steve Jobs will unveil a new product: the iFjord.