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Wall Street: Software More Valuable Than Oil
CWmike writes "The tech industry's answer to this week's stock market roller coaster was delivered on Tuesday by the mighty Apple Inc. Apple saw its stock price rise enough — gaining more than 5% — to briefly surpass Exxon Mobil as the most valuable company in the U.S., according to an AP analysis of its market cap. (Exxon Mobile wound up the day slightly ahead of Apple.) Most of the other major tech companies — including Intel, IBM, Dell, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard — all finished in positive territory yesterday, as markets made up ground lost in the big sell-off on Monday that also hit oil prices and other commodities.Tuesday's rally may be all that's needed to shake away, at least temporarily, some of the economic concerns the IT industry still faces. By closing in on Exxon, Apple effectively affirmed that there are few limits to tech growth. CW blogger Jonny Evans posits that ideas are why Apple beats Exxon on market cap, noting, 'While Exxon drills, hammers and crushes its way to find its billions, Apple's mind-miners explore myriad complexities to develop and understand new technologies.'"
Bizarre coinages aside, Wall Street wasn't making a comparative pronouncement on the value of software and oil(pro-tip: without oil, the market for shiny consumer goods would skew heavily toward the 'canned' variety...); but on the relative value of a company with substantial ability to pull margins that its peers cannot, vs. a company with a smaller ability to do that.
Now, carry on. It's the "information age" or somesuch...