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Apple Surpasses Microsoft In Market Capitalization

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.'"

10 of 557 comments (clear)

  1. Failures: Xbox,Zune,WinMo,Search,... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Just looking back at the past decade that Ballmer has been in charge is staggering:

    * 8 billion dollar Xbox fiasco and marketplace failure

    * Zune basically a non-entity

    * WinMo's nosedive to irrelevance

    * The Ballmer Google obsession and complete failure in the search market

  2. Re:ladies and gentlemen: by poetmatt · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    apple is very customer centric. They are also, however, completely proprietary. So thus their products are great for the people whom windows products used to be great for. Meanwhile, anyone with a shred of technology understanding wants nothing to do with apple.

  3. Re:Growth by AHuxley · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Bill Gates is linked to planned parenthood ideas via his father.
    At best they hope to improve quality of life in Africa by reducing the number of Africans.
    Africa will not get to trade its somewhat unique, expensive, raw materials at market rates, ever.
    MS in Africa is more a stalling, blocking motion to kill open efforts than to offer any real tech solutions.
    MS is lost in a world where XP is good for some and Apple has the 5% of desktops.
    Lunches and numbers on napkins are great for start ups but 10-20 years later the game is up.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  4. Re:Growth by Cryacin · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Exactly. You can make any company look bigger and better etc.

    It's called cooking the books. It's not profit or anything like that, it's how that people *think* profit is going.

    In other words, people collectively *believe* that Apple is *going* to be bigger than Microsoft. Well, we'll see. In the meantime, Film at 11.

    --
    Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
  5. Re:It was ten years ago today, all my tech stocks. by mgblst · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    You are ignorant, and an idiot.

    Apple has strong growth, where MS does not. This is all it means.

    While MS might not deserve to have such a low valuation, Apple does deserve its high value. The fact is, Apple has taken big risks, and changed the industry because of it.

  6. Re:Give me a break by QuantumLeaper · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    At least Microsoft can program an OS, unlike Apple who had to get Unix, since there old OS sucked worse than Win3.0

  7. Re:Watch out by twoears · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    It doesn't just "look like" the OS X desktop. Limbaugh is a long-time Mac user and evangelist.

    That's reason enough to avoid the Mac. And Limbaugh just "looks like" a human being, until he opens his pie hole.

  8. Re:All this means by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Is that AAPL is grossly overvalued.

    It's always great when some random guy on Slashdot who probably knows nothing about the topic espouses exactly the opposite of what all the experts say. Apple has a price to earnings ratio over 20. Microsoft's is 13, and Exxon's is 13.5.

  9. Re:ladies and gentlemen: by abigor · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Unix programmers use them. For example, I work with a very large US company that makes high-end switches, and OS X is the os of choice.

    Compared to me, and to the people I work with, I can assure you that it is you that lacks a shred of technological understanding, no offence meant.

    Incidentally, no one uses Linux on the desktop. It is a total failure. Sorry.

  10. Apple being evil: why or because ? by Alain+Williams · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Is Jobs' evil (closed system) approach the reason for Apple's high market cap ? or,
    Is Apple's high market cap the reason for Jobs' evil (closed system) approach ?