Apple Is Now the Most Valuable Company In History

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Apple Is Now the Most Valuable Company In History

Posted by samzenpus on Monday August 20, 2012 @09:00AM from the show-me-the-money dept.

derekmead writes "Apple, as of this morning, is valued at $621 billion, thanks to a stock price that spiked at $663.10 per share (and that has risen this afternoon). That finally beats Microsoft, who previously held the record for most valuable company in 1999 at $619 billion. Incredibly, Apple has almost doubled its valuation in the last year, when it topped Exxon-Mobil for most valuable American company with a valuation of $346 billion. It's not the cleanest comparison, but to give you an idea of how much $621 billion actually is, only 23 countries had a GDP higher than that in 2011. So, basically, Apple alone is worth more than what 200+ countries in the world could produce in an entire year."

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If this article... by daveschroeder · 2012-08-20 09:00 · Score: 1, Insightful

...as an unabashedly pro-Apple piece, isn't an argument for a "-1, Flamebait" moderation option on main page article postings on slashdot, I don't know what is. ;-)
1. Re:If this article... by Wovel · 2012-08-20 09:04 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Everything in the piece is a fact. There is no commentary on why this might be good or bad.
2. Re:If this article... by MightyMartian · 2012-08-20 09:08 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Let's compare meaningful value.
  If Apple stops pumping iPods, iPhones and iPads tomorrow, what's the worst that will happen?
  If Exxon-Mobil stops pumping out oil and refining gas, diesel and jet fuel, what's the worst that will happen?
  I'm thinking maybe the metric being invoked here is inadequate to describe the two companies relative importance and thus their ultimate value.
  
  --
  The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
3. Re:If this article... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 09:09 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  If Apple stops pumping iPods, iPhones and iPads tomorrow, what's the worst that will happen?
  Mass riots of Fanboys would commence and might be worse then running out of gas.
4. Re:If this article... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 09:10 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  What article/summary did you read? It apparently wasn't the same one I read, as everything was simple facts and completely unbiased. I know people here like to hate on Apple, but to hate on something factual is just...sad.
5. Re:If this article... by nighthawk243 · 2012-08-20 09:14 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  If Microsoft stops supporting Windows, Office, and other software tomorrow; Business IT structure would probably collapse.
6. Re:If this article... by jeffasselin · 2012-08-20 09:16 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Let's compare meaningful value.
  If Apple stops pumping iPods, iPhones and iPads tomorrow, what's the worst that will happen?
  People might start talking to each other again instead of having their attention taken by their iDevices all the time (yes, I am guilty of this at times myself).
  
  If Exxon-Mobil stops pumping out oil and refining gas, diesel and jet fuel, what's the worst that will happen?
  I'm thinking maybe the metric being invoked here is inadequate to describe the two companies relative importance and thus their ultimate value.
  After a brief period of instability, we'd be forced to switch to a more sustainable technological model based on renewable energies, reduce pollution, and save the planet.
  I think option #2 is best, I can live in an iMicrocosm, as long as I get clean air and water to breathe and drink.
  
  --
  If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
7. Re:If this article... by Wovel · 2012-08-20 09:20 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  So you believe Market-Cap as a metric is unabashedly pro-apple? Got it, I guess.
  BTW Exxon-Mobil is responsible for less than 3% of world oil production. OPEC could easily raise quota to make up for that. They are the biggest refiner, so there may be a bit more impact there.
  By current market standards, Exxon and Apple are both undervalued.
8. Re:If this article... by SaroDarksbane · 2012-08-20 09:29 · Score: 3
  
  If the major oil players stopped production cold, you wouldn't have so much of a "brief period of instability" as say, "mass societal collapse and widespread starvation".
  
  Whether Exxon by itself would be enough to trigger a collapse is a good question, but I'd say the consequences there would still be somewhat worse than a "brief period of instability".
9. Re:If this article... by couchslug · 2012-08-20 09:36 · Score: 1
  
  "If Exxon-Mobil stops pumping out oil and refining gas, diesel and jet fuel, what's the worst that will happen?"
  They will be replaced and their assets promptly purchased by other companies.
  
  --
  "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
10. Re:If this article... by bhcompy · 2012-08-20 09:39 · Score: 1
  
  Well, as factual as a paper valuation can be. If you want to dig in to it, Exxon's real assets are far more valuable than Apple's, it's just that the value doesn't necessarily translate in to dollars, and rather translate in to utility and necessity.
11. Re:If this article... by DickBreath · 2012-08-20 09:47 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Several things.
  1. It would NOT collapse. All those computers would not suddenly stop working.
  2. Only business IT structure that is build on Microsoft would even need to be concerned.
  
  Okay, I'll take back #1. Okay, maybe you're right. It would collapse. Without Windows updates, just how many weeks could an IT infrastructure go before it would be hopelessly compromised beyond all possibility of repair.
  
  --
  
  I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
12. Re:If this article... by CubicleZombie · 2012-08-20 09:48 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Let's compare meaningful value.
  If Apple stops pumping iPods, iPhones and iPads tomorrow, what's the worst that will happen?
  
  If Exxon-Mobil stops pumping out oil and refining gas, diesel and jet fuel, what's the worst that will happen?
  I think option #2 is best, I can live in an iMicrocosm, as long as I get clean air and water to breathe and drink.
  If Exxon stopped pumping oil, instead of a truck delivering your iPhone, it would be carried on the back of a Unicorn and floated gently down a rainbow to your doorstep.
  
  --
  :wq
13. Re:If this article... by Bigby · 2012-08-20 09:48 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It was such a terrible comparison, given that there is a great comparison for companies when comparing GDP; and it isn't their market cap:
  I really fail to see how iPhones, iTunes, and iPads are worth even remotely close to that number. Every one of those products are replaceable. Most become obsolete in a year. This could be the biggest bubble in corporate history. At least Microsoft had a monopoly when they reached that level. In fact, that is the only thing that kept them afloat (Windows OS).
  And I don't dismiss that Google is in the same boat. A new technology could quickly wipe out 90% of their value in a year.
14. Re:If this article... by Bigby · 2012-08-20 09:55 · Score: 2
  
  You are correct. But in the real world, only Exxon stopping would cause an increase in production at other companies. Exxon would be taking on so many charges that they would be heading quickly toward bankruptcy. Then their assets would get bought up to contribute to even more production by the other companies.
  That would cause a short term spike in the price of oil/gas. It would be a HUGE spike that might spur alternative ideas (work from home) and technologies (natural gas, solar, hydrogen). But it would be short lived.
  If Apple stopped production, people would switch to Windows OS, Android mobile, and Amazon/Google/Walmart music. There would be outrage, but the replacement by alternatives would be so quick, it would be done before Apple could even think about liquidating assets.
15. Re:If this article... by Xenx · 2012-08-20 09:58 · Score: 1
  
  I thought that was part of the standard delivery process already.
16. Re:If this article... by Sir_Sri · 2012-08-20 10:00 · Score: 2
  
  comparing GDP of a country to net worth of a company is a bizarre comparison anyway.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue is sort of what you're talking about, and it ranks apple at 43rd, with 103 billion in revenue last year, whereas exxon, royal dutch shell and Walmart are all up over 400 billion dollars.
  (point of interest, samsung is on that list with 247 billion).
  The idea of meaningful value is sort of hard to pin down, because in both cases the answer to your question is: Their competitors would just sell more. It's not like there aren't other companies making tablets or phones or oil or jet fuel or the like. If you shut down one, their competitors will simply gobble up market share and assets.
  In that sense the state owned companies that have state monopolies are the most 'meaningful' value, think state electricity company of China. If they shut down there's no other company to fix chinas power problems just waiting in the wings, but then it's not really realistic that the entire company could disappear overnight in a scandal either the way say a bank or apple could.
  Market capitalization is just the total value of the company, it's not intended to reflect anything, two companies with equal revenue but one making a profit and the other not can have wildly different market capitalizations. Hitachi, IBM, Apple, Tesco, Freddie Mac, Bank of America Honda, Verizon, Nissan, and Nestle all have roughly the same revenue, total employees is meaningless because it doesn't count sub contractors, but apple is worth more than any 3 of them combined because they make a huge profit, and because they kept holding onto that cash rather than paying a dividend like everyone else would have. Which might have been part of the plan/fun of it all, pay out 100 billion dollars in cash, watch the stock drop by 100 billion dollars but get to claim the title for having been the most valuable company ever.
17. Re:If this article... by Charliemopps · 2012-08-20 10:04 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Except the main premise: Apple is the most valuable company in history.
  If you decide that stock value is the true valuation of a buisness, even though that would be totally incorrect...
  and you decided that US Dollars, not adjusted for inflation...
  Then I suppose you could make this claim.
  
  But what is Apples value to the world compared to, lets say walmart? If apple and all its products vanished off the face of the earth right now... would it really cause a problem? If walmart closed all of its stores for just a month or 2... we'd actually have food shortages in many rural areas almost immediately. People would lose their homes due to the lack of a paycheck. Many smaller local business buy their inventories from walmart. Suppliers in China and India would have to lay off workers. Many people wouldn't be able to get prescriptions. Bug spray, insecticides, etc... could lead to increases in west nile and other disease. Literally 3 of the 4 horsemen... it's kind of funny really.
18. Re:If this article... by trum4n · 2012-08-20 10:06 · Score: 1
  
  Neither would effect my electric cars. Actually, if Exxon explodes, ill be a millionaire!
19. Re:If this article... by NatasRevol · 2012-08-20 10:08 · Score: 2
  
  True:
  XOM's total assets: $329B
  AAPL's total assets: $162B
  http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=XOM
  http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=AAPL
  However, over the last 4 years, Apple has grown it's assets roughly 50% per year. Exxon has grown it's assets by about 15% per year.
  So, in about 3 years, Apple will over take Exxon for most total assets. Obviously assuming that they grow roughly the same over the next 3 years. Which people have been arguing Apple can't do for at least 5 years now.
  
  --
  There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
20. Re:If this article... by cyp43r · 2012-08-20 10:08 · Score: 1
  
  Indispensability and value are not the same thing.
21. Re:If this article... by poity · 2012-08-20 10:10 · Score: 1
  
  Don't forget:
  After a brief period of autocratic rule, communism will emerge
  After a brief period of deregulation, standard of living will improve
  After a brief period of driving in the oncoming lane, we'll buckle our seat belts.
  
  --
  your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
22. Re:If this article... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 10:11 · Score: 1
  
  Let's compare meaningful value.
  If Apple stops pumping iPods, iPhones and iPads tomorrow, what's the worst that will happen?
  Apple is the only bridge between the technology industry and the consumer market. Thanks to Apple, millions of consumers learned that smartphones can be used to find hip restaurants. Many of them later got talked into buying Android phones at the store, but only Apple could have gotten them to those stores.
  Without Apple to generate demand, the tech industry would stagnate.
  
  If Exxon-Mobil stops pumping out oil and refining gas, diesel and jet fuel, what's the worst that will happen?
  Their wells, refineries, pipelines, and tankers would be seized by banks or nation-sates and transferred or sold off to other supermajors.
  Prices would return to normal after six months.
  In a year, nobody would remember who Exxon was.
  
  I'm thinking maybe the metric being invoked here is inadequate to describe the two companies relative importance and thus their ultimate value.
  Indeed.
23. Re:If this article... by EdIII · 2012-08-20 10:13 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, there are alternatives, but unless you can get other companies to employ the alternative you can be screwed as well.
  For one company I am only running a Windows server because it is required for their CRM platform. Could I create an alternative? Sure.... for tens of thousands of dollars (per programmer at a minimum) and about a years worth of custom coding. Not to mention support for all the 3rd party programs from other companies designed to download and sync data from their own platforms.
  It's a web of vendor lock-in. Even if you are aware of the alternatives, and desperate to move to them, you could still be just as stuck.
  I have been evaluating SaaS offering for the past 18 months looking for a solution, without finding one that even meets the minimum requirements.
  If MS Office disappeared we could get over it. As long as no other company was trying to send us MS docs, or more often, complaining they can't read our docs, we will be just fine.
  No Windows on the desktops? Still survive. No Windows on the servers? Screwed.
24. Re:If this article... by crutchy · 2012-08-20 10:20 · Score: 1
  
  ANARCHY RULZ OK!!!
25. Re:If this article... by mirix · 2012-08-20 10:22 · Score: 1
  
  I really look forward to the gunfights over a can of ham.
  
  --
  Sent from my PDP-11
26. Re:If this article... by lister+king+of+smeg · 2012-08-20 10:27 · Score: 1
  
  no only worse for the poor baristas at starbucks who have to listen to the hipsters and fanboys
  
  --
  ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
27. Re:If this article... by niftydude · 2012-08-20 10:30 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  So you believe Market-Cap as a metric is unabashedly pro-apple? Got it, I guess.
  I've always thought market cap was an incredibly bad metric for measuring a company.
  
  Just because a couple of fools are willing to pay an inflated price for a share on a particular day shouldn't mean that you can extrapolate to say the entire company is worth that much times the number of shares.
  
  In fact, one look at the market depth for any company is proof enough that most people aren't willing to pay top price, and correspondingly, that the company's worth shouldn't be so directly related to the share price.
  
  But banks tend to be willing to lend money to companies based on their market cap, so what would I know: I'm not an economist.
  
  --
  You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
28. Re:If this article... by jpmorgan · 2012-08-20 10:34 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The thing about trends is they never end, until they do. Just because some people were wrong about Apple years ago, doesn't mean they're wrong about Apple today.
  Apple may be extraordinarily successful, but its success is based upon a product line that is:
  1. Almost entirely consumer driven, and
  2. Incredibly undiversified.
  That's an incredibly risky strategy. Most companies build successful long-term business by establishing well diversified product lines, or by building product lines and business relationships that establish long-term cash flow. Apple's bet their success on their ability to stay cooler than the competition. So what's a more likely scenario for 2022: that the world is still addicted to Exxon's oil, or that the iPhone 10 is still the hottest product on the market?
29. Re:If this article... by atlasdropperofworlds · 2012-08-20 10:39 · Score: 1
  
  There aren't enough enterprise alternatives, and the reason is because MS does the enterprise very well. Also there is a lot of legacy software various companies use for their workflows, and those were written on MS software. Since MS software works well for enterprise, naturally they have no need nor desire to change.
  Also, people forget that Apple is a hardware company - in particular, they are the iPhone company (the majority of their revenue is the iPhone. iPads, Macs, iPods, iTunes, and ATV combines make less money than the iPhone. Apple has a deadly fear of Android for this reason, and it's showing.
  Not that they actually have any cause for concern yet, because tons of people clearly still love iphones. Apple is also safe because most of those people have never tried nor want to try an android device.
30. Re:If this article... by ozmanjusri · 2012-08-20 10:41 · Score: 1
  
  1. It would NOT collapse. All those computers would not suddenly stop working.
  That's (possibly) true for now, but the path being trodden by Microsoft and Apple means its likely they will be or are building their OSs with remote kill switches - call it WGA+. Add that to the proliferation of rented services, cloud and otherwise and the world might find its infrastructure held to ransom
  If there's any significant prosecution: Sorry, services withdrawn...
  
  --
  "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
31. Re:If this article... by Sta7ic · 2012-08-20 11:01 · Score: 1
  
  Market value and strategic value are independent of each other. "Meaningful value" lacks quantifiable metrics.
  What's the value of a company that designs and orders build contracts for entertainment devices? If the manufacturing is overseas?
  What's the value of a company that refines aluminium and steel alloys? If they do this domestically?
32. Re:If this article... by flimflammer · 2012-08-20 11:19 · Score: 1
  
  After a brief period of instability, we'd be forced to switch to a more sustainable technological model based on renewable energies, reduce pollution, and save the planet.
  I'd be interested in knowing what your definition of "brief" means in this context. I have my doubts it would be anywhere close to brief.
33. Re:If this article... by AK+Marc · 2012-08-20 11:20 · Score: 1
  
  Except the main premise: Apple is the most valuable company in history.
  Given private companies don't have a market cap, and that's the measure, I couldn't find anything that indicates otherwise. You seem to imply that it is not true, yet no hints of what a replacement could be. In silver it would take at today's trading values for the stock and metal, Apple is more expensive of a company than some of the first (and largest) corporations. Though it's possible that an argument could be made that they were larger as a percentage of world GDP, but I don't have sufficient information to make that determination.
  
  --
  Learn to love Alaska
34. Re:If this article... by Dreamlandlocal · 2012-08-20 11:34 · Score: 1
  
  He says, "not the cleanest comparison but..." and this is definitely a fact. Nevertheless, if he was trying to be more accurate, he might have said, "This is probably the worst and most deceptive comparison you'll read all week but..."
35. Re:If this article... by yakovlev · 2012-08-20 11:34 · Score: 1
  
  This is dead on. Apple has so much of their money tied up in two product lines that if revenue for those ever tanks, they will take the company with them.
  
  Apple makes great stuff, but their business model of being the premium brand breaks down when they have 60% or more of the market, because the general consumer is fickle. A significant portion of their customers will eventually drop those product lines for good-enough lower priced competitors.
  
  Android is a viable long-term business strategy for Google because they are making money on the ecosystem and actively encouraging competition between the mobile phone makers. Apple's business strategy would be solid if they had 10% of the phone market, but with 60% and so little diversity I don't know how they can cope with changes in consumer preference.
36. Re:If this article... by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-08-20 11:35 · Score: 1
  
  Let's compare meaningful value.
  Meaningful to whom?
  For those who buy Apple stock for $600 today, it's certainly that valuable - they know they will find someone else to sell it to for a hefty gain in a year.
  What you're talking is about their value to society, or perhaps utility. Which is not necessarily the same thing.
  I do agree though that when those two diverge extremely wide, it's not a healthy sign.
37. Re:If this article... by ackthpt · 2012-08-20 11:36 · Score: 1
  
  Everything in the piece is a fact. There is no commentary on why this might be good or bad.
  Although many of those pieces of Macs, iPads, iPhones, iPods, etc, are made in some of those companies which are lesser than Apple.
  Big question is, can they keep it going without Steve around to scare people into producing?
  
  --
  
  A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
38. Re:If this article... by WalkingBear · 2012-08-20 11:38 · Score: 1
  
  Ah, you see, but the article has made no statement about the importance of either company, but only the relative valuation of the market capitalization of various companies. No social or political value judgements, only the monetary price of the outstanding shares of the companies.
39. Re:If this article... by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2012-08-20 11:43 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  Apple is the only bridge between the technology industry and the consumer market. Thanks to Apple, millions of consumers learned that smartphones can be used to find hip restaurants.
  I hope this was intended as sarcasm, because I was finding restaurants in foreign cities using my old "feature phone" at least 2 years before the iPhone even existed.
  (And I was quite possibly the last person in any of my circles to get a mobile phone of any sort, so I wasn't exactly on the leading edge.)
  
  --
  Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
40. Re:If this article... by LordLimecat · 2012-08-20 12:00 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  "True" and "misleading" are not mutually exclusive. Apple may have the current highest market cap, but its only a record high if you do it in "dollars of the day"-- that is, Apples market cap today in todays dollars, and Microsofts 1999 market cap in 1999 dollars. It also tries to conflate "market cap" with "value" when the two are not even CLOSE to synonymous-- whats Facebook's market cap now, and what was it 2 months ago? Did the company start producing more or less, or could it be that "market cap" is simply the result of speculation, and not an actual measure of a company's long term value?
41. Re:If this article... by LordLimecat · 2012-08-20 12:03 · Score: 1
  
  After a brief period of instability
  Just how long do you suppose it takes up to ramp up production on new vehicles? Or to get new alternative technologies to be market viable?
  I think the period of instability if all oil and gas were to disappear would be substantially longer than you suppose.
42. Re:If this article... by LordLimecat · 2012-08-20 12:05 · Score: 2
  
  No, using market cap to label Apple "most valuable" is unabashedly pro-apple. It is a poor indicator of a company's ability to continue to generate revenue, which is a much closer definition IMO.
43. Re:If this article... by LordLimecat · 2012-08-20 12:07 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  If my car runs out of gas, I'll have to ride my bicycle to work, but at least I can still listen to my music on the way with my trusty iPod. And as an added bonus, no war between China and Japan.
  Have fun procuring some arable land to grow your own veggies and raise your own cattle.
44. Re:If this article... by LordLimecat · 2012-08-20 12:10 · Score: 1
  
  Wish I could mod this up. This is the huge problem with trying to be a Facebook or Apple-- you're the biggest thing on the block, until you arent, and then everyone is out of a job.
  Microsoft has a far less chance of going that route-- Windows 8 can be (is) awful, and it wont really matter that much. If Apple pulls a Vista, theyre going to be hurting a lot.
45. Re:If this article... by mysidia · 2012-08-20 12:17 · Score: 1
  
  "Value" is not defined as importance of the commodity. Value is defined as a company's worth based on assets, liabilities, and anticipated future cash flow; revenue, profits, and costs. You can be selling the most important product in the world and make no profit, then your company's valuation will be low; your intrinsic monopoly could be worth something, if you have that (E.g. ownership of land containing a certain $$ amount of commodity capable of being extracted at cost $Y and rate of Z units per quarter).
  If Exxon-Mobil stops pumping out oil and refining gas, diesel and jet fuel, what's the worst that will happen?
  $10/Gallon gas.
  A mass exodus occurs towards alternative energy sources.
  A federal inquiry is launched, and some Exxon execs go to jail for market manipulation; a shareholder lawsuit ensues, and the company is placed under different management who resume operations, unfortunately, legal delays and all, that happens years later...
  If Apple stops pumping iPods, iPhones and iPads tomorrow, what's the worst that will happen?
  Satan goes ice-skating in hell.
  The Apple bubble bursts, and the stock price is adjusted to reflect a less-lofty valuation, such as 20x forward earnings.
  Richard Stallman and Balmer become good friends, and the FSF starts marketing the reduced-price-as-in-cheap-beer Windows Express as an alternative to Linux.
  Windows 7 (or windows 8) and Android take the market.
  The Zune makes a sudden, miraculously unusual comeback.
46. Re:If this article... by Hentes · 2012-08-20 12:42 · Score: 1
  
  If Apple stops pumping iPods, iPhones and iPads tomorrow, what's the worst that will happen?
  People will buy other music players, phones and tablets.
  
  If Exxon-Mobil stops pumping out oil and refining gas, diesel and jet fuel, what's the worst that will happen?
  People will buy oil from other sources.
47. Re:If this article... by CaptainLard · 2012-08-20 12:54 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps 3% is a small amount but none the less, when all the Syria mess started there was a spike in oil prices. Syria produces about 0.5% of the world's oil (CIA world fact book). Not sure exactly but I think prices rose by far more than that. And a few years ago there was a huge jump due entirely to speculation. While the rational person would conclude that 3% isn't a big loss, the market that sets the price would poop it's pants...with uranium...that would promptly meltdown and blow up society.
48. Re:If this article... by AmberBlackCat · 2012-08-20 13:05 · Score: 1
  
  We're not guaranteed to freeze or starve without oil.
49. Re:If this article... by ceoyoyo · 2012-08-20 13:13 · Score: 1
  
  Why exactly do you and the dozen or so other posters saying the same thing think that the market cap of a company has anything to do with how critical it's product is? I have a friend who's a farmer. He grows food. You know, the stuff that keeps all of us alive. Why isn't his market cap bigger than Exxon Mobile? All they sell is oil. They don't even make it! And we could certainly do without it if we had to!
  Apple makes things that people want to buy. They make a lot of those things, and a lot of people want to buy them. They make a lot of money. Therefore, as a business, they are worth a lot of money. That's how these things work.
50. Re:If this article... by Charliemopps · 2012-08-20 13:28 · Score: 1
  
  Read this:
  http://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2012/04/23/five-signs-that-apple-is-a-bubble/
  
  Then put a stop loss on your Apple stock.
  When it saves your shirt, PM me a thank you.
51. Re:If this article... by KhabaLox · 2012-08-20 13:34 · Score: 2
  
  somewhat worse than a "brief period of instability".
  In much the same way, The Dark Ages was a short respite from learning, technology and engineering.
  
  --
  Ceci n'est pas un sig.
52. Re:If this article... by perlith · 2012-08-20 13:38 · Score: 1
  
  If Exxon stopped pumping oil, instead of a truck delivering your iPhone, it would be carried on the back of a Unicorn and floated gently down a rainbow to your doorstep.
  I want a pony dammit. And a pink one at that!
53. Re:If this article... by AK+Marc · 2012-08-20 13:57 · Score: 1
  
  I don't own Apple stock. And in practice, a stop-loss won't do what you want in a bursting bubble (i.e. you put in a stop loss order at $90, and it executes at $50).
  
  --
  Learn to love Alaska
54. Re:If this article... by jbolden · 2012-08-20 14:07 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah the metric here is market cap not societal importance. It will be a good day when people stop confusing the two and that applies much more broadly than just Apple.
55. Re:If this article... by jbolden · 2012-08-20 14:10 · Score: 1
  
  . Apple is also safe because most of those people have never tried nor want to try an android device.
  Please. Android is the top selling phone OS in the world. It is the dominant competitor everywhere iPhone is marketed. People don't live in a bubble. They know what Android devices are and like the alternate product better.
56. Re:If this article... by jbolden · 2012-08-20 14:15 · Score: 1
  
  Odd you would pick Walmart. I don't see how rural areas would have food shortages however. Even for most rural areas there are other large grocery stores within 100 miles. Given high demand they can extend hours and move far more product than they do today. There is plenty of excess road capacity in rural areas. Not much of anything would happen.
  As for Walmart's suppliers, similar to the food. Kmart, target... pick up the slack and to pick up the slack they go to existing suppliers.
57. Re:If this article... by raddan · 2012-08-20 14:45 · Score: 1
  
  The part you're missing though is services-- that's Apple's diversity. Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that all of its physical products are tied to services that you need to pay to use. With the iCloud, they don't just want you to pay once, they want you to pay regularly.
  
  There are many millions of people with their music and videos in iTunes AAC/M4V format. Given the choice between buying a (let's suppose) superior music player/phone and ditching their media collection or just buying another iPhone and retaining their library, I think most people will choose the latter. Sure, us nerds can move that music to another (non-Apple) machine, but the vast majority of people: 1) can't do this, or 2) can't be bothered to do this.
  
  I have a hard time seeing how Android is diverse and Apple's iPhone is not. There's a HUGE ecosystem for the iPhone.
58. Re:If this article... by TranquilVoid · 2012-08-20 15:17 · Score: 1
  
  It says more about the structure of that particular market, which is why comparisons of the importance of Apple products vs oil are asinine. Nevertheless a company that has achieved a large market cap can be said to have done (past tense) something right, and the total worth does give a decent indication of how important it currently is to society, and therefore how great an affect it's sudden demise would have.
  Still, Apple produces mostly interchangable luxury products. Most of the world's population gets by without Apple devices at all, but almost everyone would be affected by Exxon disappearing overnight.
59. Re:If this article... by niftydude · 2012-08-20 15:49 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Apple's P/E ratio is only 15.64. They're greatly undervalued.
  I'm not sure how you can say that they are greatly undervalued. Any P/E over 17 is considered overvalued, and a P/E in the range of 10-17 is considered fair value.
  So I would say that a P/E of 15.64 is on the high side of being fairly valued, but certainly not greatly undervalued. Greatly undervalued would be if their P/E was below 10.
  
  --
  You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
60. Re:If this article... by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-20 16:18 · Score: 1
  
  No. If Exxon stopped pumping oil, other companies would take up the slack. There would be a big price surge though and regional shortages before new supply chains could be implemented.
61. Re:If this article... by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-20 16:22 · Score: 1
  
  I beg to differ.
  Apple runs at a PE of 15.63 currently. What multiple do you think investors ought to be willing to pay for a mature company?
  Exxon trades at a multiple of 9.27. Very reasonable for a company that can't expect sales growth.
62. Re:If this article... by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-20 16:25 · Score: 1
  
  They're valued at $665/share. Their profit last year was $42.55/share. Invest your money in Apple and you have a good chance of making 6.4% ROI. That's not bad, but IMO Exxon is a better bet.
63. Re:If this article... by atlasdropperofworlds · 2012-08-20 17:15 · Score: 2
  
  > Apple is also safe because most of *those* people have never tried nor want to try an android device.
  ^ I stand by this. I meet people with iPhones all over the place, daily, who don't have a clue what Android has to offer. They never looked. They don't care.
64. Re:If this article... by foniksonik · 2012-08-20 17:36 · Score: 1
  
  You are forgetting their entire store portfolio, their patent portfolio (disputed as it is, it's still very large), their supply chain which is not to be sniffed at, their R&D facilities, their media contracts, their data centers and a whole host of other lucrative sidelines.
  All totaled, Apple isn't nearly as undiversified as you imply. Yes the iOS ecosystem and Mac platform are linchpins but without them Apple could easily transform itself to focus on any of the above given adequate leadership.
  
  --
  A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
65. Re:If this article... by khallow · 2012-08-20 18:48 · Score: 1
  
  Well, consider why they don't do that right now. The app store is a lure to get the customer to buy the hardware at a premium. My view is that going to an app story only scheme is going to generate less profit for them than the current combined software/hardware scheme.
66. Re:If this article... by jbolden · 2012-08-20 18:58 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Apple conducted a study on this.
  Among people who wanted to buy an iPhone and choose Android instead:
  
  Wanted to stay with current wireless service provider: 48%
  Trusted the Google brand: 36%
  Preferred larger screen: 30%
  Preferred the Android market for apps (Gmail, Google Docs, Google-Voice): 27%
  Wanted better integration with Google services: 26%
  Wanted the latest and greatest smartphone: 26%
  Wanted turn by turn GPS navigation: 25%
  Wanted the latest technology: 25%
  
  Conversely JD Power and associates did the opposite survey and found the number one reason people choose Apple was battery life. An area where they are only beaten by 1 RIM model as a matter of fact.
  #2 reason was Apple's high level of customer service after point of sale
  #3 better integration
  #4 singular vision
  #5 better sales staff (I'm assuming they mean Apple stores as contrasted with regular carrier based stores)
  #6 innovation
  I read those and they seem mostly true in both directions. I don't personally agree with the "latest and greatest" and "technology" arguments on Android but I can see where Android customers might view Apple as too conservative.
67. Re:If this article... by roman_mir · 2012-08-20 20:02 · Score: 1
  
  After a brief period of instability, we'd be forced to switch to a more sustainable technological model based on renewable energies, reduce pollution, and save the planet.
  - except that this 'brief period of instability' would include hunger, disease and death of probably over 50% of the population on this planet (and I am not only talking about Exxon, I see it as just one of the providers of oil and oil products).
  Your food - it stops existing if there is no oil. Same with food distribution. Same with some of the clean water and sanitation, isn't USA using oil products to generate most of its electricity? Plenty of medical equipment and medicine will no longer be possible, distributing it also will not be possible.
  Basically if oil industry was shut down without a very very long transition period that would rely on real working alternatives in everything we do, then we are really fucked.
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
68. Re:If this article... by petermgreen · 2012-08-20 20:09 · Score: 1
  
  IMO it's about right for a company that is predirected to neither grow or shrink in profit significantly.
  So whether you belive they are under or over valued depends on whether you believe they still have growth to come or whether you belive they are on the crest of a wave and it's downhill from here.
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
69. Re:If this article... by wvmarle · 2012-08-20 20:41 · Score: 1
  
  2. Only business IT structure that is build on Microsoft would even need to be concerned.
  And you of course try to imply that this is the business' fault.
  Of course most of the world's business depends on Microsoft, and that in itself is an issue. Though it is not that there are easy alternatives, or quick fixes for these companies to switch to another system overnight, and not much reason for them to take so much risk when what they have actually works.
  Oh and by the way, if the world would depend on Debian, it would be the same problem. That system is also not bug-free.
70. Re:If this article... by wvmarle · 2012-08-20 20:55 · Score: 2
  
  OK I agree on you that Apple is overvalued, but many other people obviously believe it's the right value for the company.
  Apple is more than iPods/iPads/etc. It's a company, it's an organisation that knows how to produce those things, how to market them, how to sell them, and, maybe most importantly, how to create new products in a way that no-one else has done before (even if based on old ideas, the actual product is something that didn't exist before). This know-how, this organisation, that is also what makes a company and what gives it value.
  Most likely, Apple has internally prototypes for the iPad4, the iPhone6, various powerbooks, an extra thin Macbook Air, and who knows what they have. Having these upcoming products adds to the value of a company. Having the facilities and the people to develop new products adds to it. There is likely a whole lot of know-how on the shelf, things that work and things that don't. There will be ideas that can not be done yet, because the technology doesn't exist.
  And then there is the pure brand value. The Apple Computer brand is very valuable: for example if you would have two absolutely identical tablets, one with the Apple brand the other without, they would sell at different price. There is immense value in that.
  Valuing companies like Apple is very difficult. How much is the brand worth? How much is the employee's collective know-how worth? How much are their shops worth - other than their pure real estate value? How many successful products will they be able to put on the market in the upcoming year, five years, decade?
  And that doesn't account for just Apple, that accounts for all companies. It's the sum of parts that's making a company, and by having those parts together it's final value is more than the sum of the parts.
  A company like Exxon is relatively easier to value. They work with a physical product, they own huge amounts of real estate and physical infrastructure, etc. They also have a lot of know-how of course, but that's not their core product.
71. Re:If this article... by wvmarle · 2012-08-20 20:57 · Score: 1
  
  I would expect their competitors, including local independent shops, to take over really quickly. And if you want to suggest that the US doesn't have any such local stores any more, then with the disappearance of Walmart they will appear very soon again.
72. Re:If this article... by hairyfish · 2012-08-20 22:41 · Score: 1
  
  Okay, maybe you're right. It would collapse. Without Windows updates, just how many weeks could an IT infrastructure go before it would be hopelessly compromised beyond all possibility of repair.
  Quite a while actually. I still have unpatched Windows 2000 servers that run fine, so it's safe to assume we could go 10 years. It's amazing how many so called 'nerds' have very little understanding of IT security.
73. Re:If this article... by hairyfish · 2012-08-20 23:05 · Score: 1
  
  There are many millions of people with their music and videos in iTunes AAC/M4V format. Given the choice between buying a (let's suppose) superior music player/phone and ditching their media collection or just buying another iPhone and retaining their library, I think most people will choose the latter.
  But didn't people just do exactly that when CDs were invented? Or DVDs? Or BluRay? I remember when I bought my first CD player, I didn't go out and buy the same music I had on LP, I bought new stuff and moved on with my life. MS and Oracle etc have lock-in becsiness data has real value, Consumer data doesn't have the same value, if you lose you MP3 collection, you might not be happy, but it's pretty easy to move on, buy a different device, and buy some new music. It is a very fickle market to base a 1/2 trillion dollar business on.
74. Re:If this article... by hairyfish · 2012-08-20 23:11 · Score: 1
  
  At least Microsoft had a monopoly when they reached that level. In fact, that is the only thing that kept them afloat (Windows OS).
  Actually it is Office that keeps the Enterprise locked in. Windows has plenty of competitors, Office has none (with the same level features and integration).
75. Re:If this article... by tgd · 2012-08-21 00:16 · Score: 1
  
  Everything in the piece is a fact. There is no commentary on why this might be good or bad.
  Except its not a fact. "Has the highest dollar value in history" would be an accurate statement. "Most valuable in history" requires adjusting the price for inflation, which is (as I'm sure you know) a measure of the reduction in value of the currency the company is valued with.
  Based on that scale, its not the highest in history. Adjusted for inflation, I don't think that even makes the top five. I can say for certain it does't take #1, which was Microsoft 13 years ago. Adjusted for inflation, its value was more than $200b higher. Apple stock needs to hit $900 to be the most valuable company in history. (And that is assuming it does it very quickly -- that number will rise as inflation continues.)
76. Re:If this article... by LDAPMAN · 2012-08-21 01:09 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, it's likely that half of us would. Almost everything you depend on from food production to medicine would fail without oil.
77. Re:If this article... by AnonyMouseCowWard · 2012-08-21 02:51 · Score: 1
  
  Can we not generalize like this? I happen to be both a finance nazi, and this is annoying to me, not to mention downright dangerous if people start applying your rule without understanding it.
  
  You can use a rule of thumb for P/E analysis, but it's just that, a rule of thumb. You cannot automatically say that a P/E above 17 makes the company overvalued, because they might have a growth potential that justifies it. For example, AAPL in 2007. You also cannot say that a company with a low P/E is undervalued, there might be good reasons why its P/E is so low.
  
  Basically, your rule of thumb is valid based on your comfort level with risk and your assumptions about the maturity level of a company (and its industry and the state of the market etc.). To you, a P/E of 15 is roughly fairly valued, but if someone has a good reason to think Apple can keep growing at the same pace it had for a couple more years, then yes 15 might look cheap to them.
  
  What's more interesting in this case, though, is that unlike MSFT at the height of the dotcom bubble, AAPL _seems_ valued fairly/conservatively and it's still worth that much... Makes you realize the commercial success that they've achieved in the past 10 years, turning around a company on the brink of bankruptcy into a cash-printing machine (alchemists of yore would be jealous. Apple is effectively taking plastic and metal and trading it for gold!) .
78. Re:If this article... by Phroggy · 2012-08-21 03:15 · Score: 1
  
  The part you're missing though is services-- that's Apple's diversity. Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that all of its physical products are tied to services that you need to pay to use. With the iCloud, they don't just want you to pay once, they want you to pay regularly.
  Apple doesn't make a lot of money on its services, which mostly exist to add value to Apple's hardware. I'm not saying they're not making any money at all, but if they shut down iCloud completely, the biggest impact to Apple's bottom line would not be from the loss of subscription fees but rather from reduced hardware sales because consumers would find Macs and iPhones less attractive without it.
  
  There are many millions of people with their music and videos in iTunes AAC/M4V format.
  I think it's important to draw a distinction here between music and videos. Videos sold through the iTunes Store are encrypted with proprietary DRM technology making them unplayable on non-Apple devices, but that hasn't been true of music in many years. Virtually any modern media player should be able to play music purchased from the iTunes Store, and moving it from a Mac to a Linux box isn't any more complicated than moving it to another Mac (unless you use the feature in the new Mac's setup wizard to automatically copy everything from your old Mac).
  
  --
  $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
  $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
79. Re:If this article... by bhcompy · 2012-08-21 04:02 · Score: 1
  
  Essential finite natural resources are worth more than anything else over the long term
80. Re:If this article... by cellocgw · 2012-08-21 04:52 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting survey, but not directly useful. It doesn't mention what *percentage* of people who wanted an iPhone decided to go Android instead. The reasons for switching don't matter if only 0.1% actually switched. BTW, anecdotally the number one reason I hear for choosing iPhone over anything is "it just works."
  
  --
  https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
81. Re:If this article... by jbolden · 2012-08-21 05:43 · Score: 1
  
  I assume "it just works" sounds like "better integration" and possibly innovation. I assume the sample answers discouraged "it just works". In terms of why people didn't pick the phone, Apple estimated it at the high 40s in terms of Verizon customers i.e. people who would have bought Apple but got Android instead. I think the underestimated since within 3 quarters of coming to Verizon they were 54% of Verizon's smartphone sales.
  In the other direction people who reject Apple. A good proxy might be the 1/4 of AT&T customers that choose Android over Apple for their smartphones.
  As an aside I'm in the "it just works" group. By which I mean: better integration with OSX, better quality of construction so I don't have to worry about wear and tear after 2 years, monitored app marketplace so I don't have to worry about viruses, and customers with a pole up their ass about quality defects so I can trust reviews.
82. Re:If this article... by Bigby · 2012-08-21 06:22 · Score: 1
  
  With regard to market cap, I was simply saying that GDP vs Market Cap is a horrible comparison. One measures production of the country and the other is a valuation of a company. The "Market Cap" of a Government is not the GDP; not even close. It would be much better to compare GDP to a single year's revenue of the company. This is akin to comparing GDP to corporate profit instead of deficit/surplus to corporate profit. Compare national debt to corporate equity...not revenues. Etc...
  As far as how critical a company is has nothing to do with the market cap. The was actually part of my point. The other was that critical companies have less volatility. The farming industry won't lose 90% of the value very easily. The produce an absolute necessity. They could only take that kind of loss if 90% of people die. Likewise, Exxon is not as volatile as Apple/Google. Meanwhile, Apple is sitting on top of it perch with a likely bubble. I say likely because everything they do is not only replaceable, but already has alternatives in the market. One can say the same thing about Exxon, but there is market-ready innovation (relatively speaking) in their industry (or any industry compared to tech). There are alternatives, but no one can supplant someone in the oil industry without inventing a whole new source of energy.
83. Re:If this article... by Aryden · 2012-08-21 07:10 · Score: 1
  
  you have a gun... shoot the nearest animal, put on fire, eat.
84. Re:If this article... by Aryden · 2012-08-21 07:13 · Score: 1
  
  Coal, nuclear and water turbine to generate. The problematic link to oil would be that you need to get coal and other supplies to the power facilities. This is usually done by train, hopefully electric but we still have too many diesels around.
85. Re:If this article... by zigfreed · 2012-08-21 07:40 · Score: 1
  
  If Apple stops pumping iPods, iPhones and iPads tomorrow, what's the worst that will happen?
  The year of the Android desktop.
86. Re:If this article... by atlasdropperofworlds · 2012-08-21 11:46 · Score: 1
  
  "it just works" applies to all phones these days. Some things are more painful using iOS. For example, I think iTunes is the worst software abortion I've seen in a long time. It's a vector for browser based attacks. It has a trojan virus-like update mechanism that wants to install Quicktime, Safari, Bonjour, etc. on my system. So in short, "It just works" after you perform and accept the required setup, whereas Android "just works" with what I have right now on Windows and Linux.
87. Re:If this article... by atlasdropperofworlds · 2012-08-21 11:57 · Score: 1
  
  As a non-OSX user, the iPhone "just not works", at all. You need iTunes to do pretty much anything with it, and iTunes is an abortion of a piece of software, at least on windows. My android works with everything I already have installed. There is no effort, and an android phone is a self-contained unit that does not require any external software at all. Also, voice is managed better (I'm on android 4.1), and the maps app gives me traffic reports. I can unlock my phone using tools provided by google, which isn't important for non-technical people, but it is vital for me. I've one-on-oned my phone with my friends' iphones. My phone does better in every function, except for in-browser HLS streaming. I also use widgets so I can check email and the calendar without having to launch an app. Google account integration trounces Apple account integration, since I just have to "log in" to my phone. The iPhone, however, has a more unified look, and I do like the way the glass and metal feels.
88. Re:If this article... by mattack2 · 2012-08-21 12:19 · Score: 1
  
  You need iTunes to do pretty much anything with it
  You can now update OTA, you can do backups to iCloud, you can get apps OTA.
  What do you *need* iTunes for?
89. Re:If this article... by jbolden · 2012-08-21 12:58 · Score: 1
  
  I don't have personal experience with iTunes on Windows. As for management most everything can be done on the phone itself, you are a few years out of date. I prefer iTunes but I'm using iTunes on its native platform.
  As for the rest you should read the list. I doubt your batter life is better than your friend's iPhone. I doubt your phone comes with a nearby store or extensive online and over the phone technical support.... Those are the functions that sell the iPhone.
90. Re:If this article... by AmberBlackCat · 2012-08-21 13:04 · Score: 1
  
  I suspect more than half of the world doesn't have those things anyway. Maybe losing oil would be an equalizer.
91. Re:If this article... by mattack2 · 2012-08-21 13:37 · Score: 1
  
  In various financial articles I read today, it said that the typical P/E ratio was market dependent. So if that's true, you can't reasonably compare the P/E of an electronics company with that of an oil company.
92. Re:If this article... by ebvwfbw · 2012-08-21 16:07 · Score: 1
  
  Let's compare meaningful value.
  If Apple stops pumping iPods, iPhones and iPads tomorrow, what's the worst that will happen?
  If Exxon-Mobil stops pumping out oil and refining gas, diesel and jet fuel, what's the worst that will happen?
  I'm thinking maybe the metric being invoked here is inadequate to describe the two companies relative importance and thus their ultimate value.
  I know, it's psycho. There is absolutely no rational reason for it to be where it is other than gambling. The questions is, how high will it go before it comes crashing down! Could be tomorrow after people realize Apple isn't bigger than Exxon Mobile and the price is insanity. Especially with the new leadership, if you can call it that. I'm disappointed and I own mac books, phones, etc.. I'm hoping they don't turn into a turd like Microsoft did. Some major suck going on there. Windows 8 had better be something or they could be done.
93. Re:If this article... by atlasdropperofworlds · 2012-08-21 17:05 · Score: 1
  
  Before iCloud, iTunes was needed. You still need iTunes to get music/video from your computer to your phone. Android has always been OTA. With iOS, it's relatively new.
94. Re:If this article... by atlasdropperofworlds · 2012-08-21 17:09 · Score: 1
  
  Nearby store? I just go to any reseller for the carrier of the phone. Over the phone support, I call google directly. They have an 800 number. They replace things like headphones for free. Battery life? I can replace mine. Battery life under use it about the same. My friends think that all smartphone battery life is too short. They are correct.
95. Re:If this article... by jbolden · 2012-08-22 01:41 · Score: 1
  
  Nearby store? I just go to any reseller for the carrier of the phone.
  Generally they don't repairs / service? I actually like the way Verizon's insurance handles this with other phones by mailing me a new phone, but no I can't go in and get a replacement at a Verizon store even if it is prearranged. They don't have service stock and sales stock.
  Over the phone support, I call google directly. They have an 800 number.
  I don't think they support customers on Android. Do you have a link?
  Battery life under use it about the same
  No its not. The Samsung Galaxy III has about 7.5 hours of talk time, the iPhone 4S 14.5 hours. Web browsing iPhone 4S comes in around 7 hrs, Galaxy around 5 hrs.
96. Re:If this article... by atlasdropperofworlds · 2012-08-22 04:25 · Score: 1
  
  Service is usually done by replacement. If you get a phone from any retailer around here, and you have a problem with it, you bring it back and they handle it.
  I use the nexus phone. My talk time is 17 hours. I've also put in the 2100 mAh battery, so it's probably now well over 20.
  The support line is linked here: http://support.google.com/nexus/?hl=en
97. Re:If this article... by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-25 17:30 · Score: 1
  
  In various financial articles I read today, it said that the typical P/E ratio was market dependent. So if that's true, you can't reasonably compare the P/E of an electronics company with that of an oil company.
  Yet every investor DOES.
Selll your stock. by Torinaga-Sama · 2012-08-20 09:03 · Score: 5, Funny

Issac Newton knew a thing or two about apples. What goes up must come down.

--
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
1. Re:Selll your stock. by Mike+Buddha · 2012-08-20 09:26 · Score: 1
  
  It's that kind of thinking that doomed the quants to a footnote in the (stupid) economic history of the late 20th century.
  
  --
  by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
2. Re:Selll your stock. by colinrichardday · 2012-08-20 09:43 · Score: 1
  
  Really, then why did he get taken on the South Sea Bubble?
3. Re:Selll your stock. by Torinaga-Sama · 2012-08-20 09:43 · Score: 1
  
  I didn't say they wouldn't be on top, but they aren't going to be a growth stock as they have in the past. Additionally, if you think Apple will be immune from the anti-trust problems that you saw with Microsoft, I think you will be surprised in the coming years. It gets hot under the spotlight and with the way they are pushing the lawsuits around it is quite obvious that they are transitioning their posture to defend their share as opposed to growing it.
  
  --
  (/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
4. Re:Selll your stock. by Torinaga-Sama · 2012-08-20 10:04 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  My pithy saying was gunning for +1 Funny, not +1 Insightful. I genuinely believe that Apple's influence has either peaked or is peaking. This doesn't mean that they aren't going to be the major player for a the foreseeable future. I find it unlikely that they will be able to maintain their rate of growth and if they start to grow much more vertically they are going to start getting a lot of unwanted government attention.
  Additionally, past the iPad there hasn't been a whole lot of innovation coming from them. They haven't showed up in the 7 inch market yet. That is not to see that they won't sell a bajillion iPad mini's when they drop, but that is going to come primarily from within the segment of the market that they already own. The iPod was a great device that had no peer so it got a ton of people on the platform. The iPhone was a great device that had no peer so it got a ton of people onto the platform. The IPad was a great device that had no peer so it got a ton of people onto the platform. The mini isn't even out yet but already there are bunch of peers on the market that work pretty darn well, so I think the opportunity there is missed. We will have to wait and see where Apple will be innovating from here out, but I am betting that there days of first to market are shortening.
  
  --
  (/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
5. Re:Selll your stock. by NatasRevol · 2012-08-20 10:10 · Score: 1
  
  Pretty sure people were saying the same thing 4 years ago. Can't continue to grow that fast, that big, blah blah blah.
  IF THEY GROW THEIR BUSINESS AT ZERO PERCENT, THEY'RE STILL MAKING A FUCK TON OF MONEY EVERY YEAR.
  Fortunately, they've been growing their business at about 50% per year for the last five years.
  
  --
  There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
6. Re:Selll your stock. by niftydude · 2012-08-20 10:41 · Score: 2
  
  IF THEY GROW THEIR BUSINESS AT ZERO PERCENT, THEY'RE STILL MAKING A FUCK TON OF MONEY EVERY YEAR.
  If they grow their business at 0% then their current share price is way over-valued. It is because there is an expectation of future growth built into the share price that the share price is so high.
  
  If Apple doesn't grow, and continues to just make the same fuck ton of money that they are making now, then the current share price is not supportable.
  
  --
  You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
7. Re:Selll your stock. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 11:16 · Score: 1
  
  Apples stock price is based on selling the next hip item. One or two non "hip" items and the company stock will be 10% of what it is now. The have no physical assets other than cash and they manufacture and assemble nothing themselves. They are a third party that designs one to three new products a year. Hey.. its working for now.
8. Re:Selll your stock. by theshowmecanuck · 2012-08-20 11:23 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Up to and including the iPad there hasn't been much innovation from them. They have just been better at waiting for other companies to blow themselves up trying to market cutting edge stuff until the bugs are worked out and then are great at marketing when they come out with a product using technology that has stabalized.
  iPod: they weren't the first digital music player or even the first with a mini-disk. But they were the first to have one that didn't suck because they waited. Same with iPhone: they weren't the first to allow surfing the net on your phone, that had been around for a while. They waited till bigger displays were available and bigger memory. Same with tablets. Tablets have been used for more than a decade. UPS and other couriers have had you sign for stuff on a tablet forever now. But Apple waited till better technology came around that didn't suck for the consumer.
  I personally don't have any clue why they are priced so high. They don't have leading market share of anything except the upwardly full of themselves Apple fanboy/fangirl market. They are way behind market share of both PCs and laptops. Android outsells them by miles. Like, WTF? Mind you, maybe investors already have some thoughts about droves of people running from Windows 8. Until those people find out how much Apple overcharges. Still it will be good for a spike in sales.
  
  --
  -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
9. Re:Selll your stock. by mikestew · 2012-08-20 12:06 · Score: 1
  
  I personally don't have any clue why they are priced so high.
  
  A P/E of 15 and they pay a (admittedly small) dividend. Me, I'm surprised the price/share isn't higher. I also don't need a rational reason to trade them in a market that makes little sense most of the time.
  But if a reason is needed, go to Bellevue Square Mall in the Seattle suburbs. Right in the heart of Microsoft country. Take a look at the Microsoft Store, sad as it is with its employees standing around. Now walk 50 meters to the Apple Store. Notice a difference? Notice how you can barely get in there on a weekend?
  Haters can hate, and they can wish for the share price crash that probably isn't going to come any time soon. In the mean time they've missed out on a 76% increase in share price in the last twelve months.
10. Re:Selll your stock. by Yvanhoe · 2012-08-20 12:23 · Score: 1
  
  I personally don't have any clue why they are priced so high.
  
  They sell at a high price what they produce at a low price. And people have yet to understand that. Because it is shiny and has a good finish, they believe it is worth twice the price of a competitor. They sure have taste in where to add $5 to the manufacturing process. It is that simple.
  
  --
  The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
11. Re:Selll your stock. by Zero__Kelvin · 2012-08-20 12:30 · Score: 1
  
  It turns out Newton was wrong about a lot of things, actually.
  
  --
  Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
12. Re:Selll your stock. by ceoyoyo · 2012-08-20 13:16 · Score: 1
  
  OMG, Apple didn't invent a brand new multi-tens-of-billions-of-dollars market in the last two years! They're clearly doomed!
13. Re:Selll your stock. by Phat_Tony · 2012-08-20 13:30 · Score: 1
  
  That's a common theory, but Apple's P/E is 15.6. For context:
  Microsoft: 15.4
  IBM: 14.5
  GE: 18.2
  Walmart: 15.2
  Toyota: 17.87
  
  Do most of the biggest companies in the world also hold most of their value in the expectation of further rapid growth?
  
  Apple makes unreal amounts of money. Their profitability increased so fast, it outpaced their stock value despite its growth. Early this year Marc Andreessen made the investment news pointing out that Apple's profits had so far outpaced their stock price that they had the P/E of a steel company that was about to go out of business.
  
  Compared to other companies, their stock price is pretty much what one would expect it to be for a company that investors expect to stagnate right where it is.
  
  --
  Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
14. Re:Selll your stock. by evilviper · 2012-08-20 15:25 · Score: 2
  
  The iPod was a great device that had no peer so it got a ton of people on the platform.
  The Rio Karma was every bit competitive with the iPod.
  What Apple did was advertise. Outside of geekier circles, people didn't know there was a replacement for CDs out there... And when Apple told them, they became synonymous with it. A whole generation of people know MP3 players as iPods, and don't know that there's another name for them.
  
  --
  Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
15. Re:Selll your stock. by slashmydots · 2012-08-20 16:07 · Score: 1
  
  Issac Newton knew a thing or two about apples. What goes up must come down.
  Yeah, their crazy ass prices lol. No, seriously, android is stomping them for less money per smartphone. You can still get an equivalent PC for half the price of a Mac. They're no longer the kings of photo editing and they're absolutely dead and buried because of CUDA when it comes to video editing. A GT440 can render at around 30x the speed of the fastest Mac but good luck installing, as it is not supported and has no driver. I could compare products all day but when you have 40% of one market (smartphones) and like 15% of another (the computer market) and they're the most valuable company in the world, it's like the ghost of Steve Jobs on top of a skyscraper, waving a big red flag and it says "WE CHARGE TOO MUCH!"
16. Re:Selll your stock. by Lord+Maud'Dib · 2012-08-20 16:54 · Score: 1
  
  Wait, you're implying that they did previously? When?
17. Re:Selll your stock. by Vapula · 2012-08-20 17:51 · Score: 1
  
  High value is an easy guess... The reason is the same than why people are buying bonds from Germany with NEGATIVE interests.
  With the crisis, many investors don't know where to invest, Apple has lots of cash and, as such, is far from going bankrupt. It don't give much interrest but, unless the bubble crashs, it's there to stay, what can't be say for many companies.
  But should there more rewarding (and still solid) shares, investors would switch because of the bubble-like behaviour of Apple...
18. Re:Selll your stock. by Altrag · 2012-08-20 18:18 · Score: 1
  
  "Too much" is subjective though. There's a lot of psychology that people will pay more for certain products essentially for the sake of paying more -- they feel they've got a better product even in cases where there's no quantitative difference.
  And I'm not even talking about the prestige of owning something more expensive than your peers (that's also a big factor, but its a different one.) I'm talking about charging $500 for a $400 product and getting more customers, essentially completely inverting (a naive interpretation of) the tenets of microeconomics.
  I say naive because a full treatment of micro involves "utility" rather than raw dollar value -- a much looser term that can potentially incorporate concepts like how a person feels about their purchase.
  Essentially in my example, the customer is still paying $400 for the product, with the additional $100 buying them a warm fuzzy feeling as an accessory to the main purchase. Exactly the kind of thing you're seeing in action when a product is up-priced based purely on what brand/logo is attached to it.
19. Re:Selll your stock. by antdude · 2012-08-20 18:34 · Score: 1
  
  Issac doesn't approve your typo. :P
  
  --
  Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
20. Re:Selll your stock. by NatasRevol · 2012-08-21 01:56 · Score: 1
  
  The only thing that really seems to matter to Apple's share price (because Wall Street can't seem to value it any other way) is cash.
  Basically, AAPL = 5x cash.
  http://yfrog.com/ese58hp
  
  --
  There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
21. Re:Selll your stock. by avandesande · 2012-08-21 06:21 · Score: 1
  
  If anything I think we are in a 'gadget bubble' right now, and Apple is king. I've spent much more on pianos, violins and lessons for my kids the last few years than electronics.
  
  --
  love is just extroverted narcissism
22. Re:Selll your stock. by Torinaga-Sama · 2012-08-21 06:56 · Score: 1
  
  That is not necessarily a good analogy. Apple has already proved with the publishing industry that it isn't above meddling in the affairs of content providers, telling them how much they are going to charge for things.
  http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/11/technology/apple-doj-ebooks/index.htm
  If UPS bought Exxon-Mobile (which I know is ridiculous) do you think there would be a problem? Apple, being the big boy now will have to deal with these sort of claims when entering into smaller markets in which they have some level of control of how the market work.
  Microsoft got sued for Internet Explorer, for fucks sake. It's a free product in a the market full of other free products.
  
  --
  (/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
23. Re:Selll your stock. by Torinaga-Sama · 2012-08-21 07:37 · Score: 1
  
  A Microsoft store in Belle Square is purely a bad ploy on Microsofts part, especially with so many people in the area employed by the company and getting those same products at a fraction of the price.
  The only people who are still taking a side in the Microsoft / Apple debate are people who don't understand that they are barely even direct competitors any more. I know a lot of people who run Windows 7 on their Macbooks. One thing they have in common is that they are both finding themselves late entrants into the 7inch tablet market.
  There is no doubting that Apple has been successful, They will continue to bring money in for the foreseeable future, but I don't think you are going to be seeing any more years of 76% share price increase.
  
  --
  (/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
24. Re:Selll your stock. by mattack2 · 2012-08-21 08:42 · Score: 1
  
  The post you responded to was talking about the *share* price. (I admit it wasn't blatantly obvious.)
  Plus, name an iPad competitor that has equivalent hardware & software that is 50% of the price.
25. Re:Selll your stock. by Torinaga-Sama · 2012-08-21 08:48 · Score: 1
  
  And that will surely continue to happen forever and ever. That is why I am typing this on a machine made by Digital Equipment through cables owned by Bell.
  
  --
  (/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
26. Re:Selll your stock. by Torinaga-Sama · 2012-08-21 08:51 · Score: 1
  
  Did yours have any children that would claim their thoughts as their own?
  If you define a smart phone by the ability to surf the web then you are absolutely correct. But if you talk about making a phone that makes it so that you don't have to surf the web then you are totally wrong. The iPhone is the device for people who don't surd the web, they use apps. There was no viable peer of that at the time of release.
  And no, all of my parents children died. It is quite tragic you insensitive clod!
  
  --
  (/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
27. Re:Selll your stock. by Torinaga-Sama · 2012-08-21 09:04 · Score: 1
  
  Rio burnt too many early adopters to be successful and besides aesthetically there is honestly no comparison between the two devices. Apple won because it was simple and elegant.
  
  --
  (/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
28. Re:Selll your stock. by theshowmecanuck · 2012-08-21 18:56 · Score: 1
  
  Nice Troll A/C. Now get your head out of your ass. Unless you like chewing on your inner moron. The first browsers on mobile phones came out in the late 1990 with the UP Browser by a company now known as OpenWave. Here is an article from 2006 that will clue you in. My crappy Samsung in 2005 could surf the web and had apps. Apple just waited till bigger and more rugged touch displays were out that were reliable.
  
  --
  -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
29. Re:Selll your stock. by evilviper · 2012-08-21 19:20 · Score: 1
  
  aesthetically there is honestly no comparison between the two devices.
  You're right... the iPod is UGLY. What is it modeled after, a pack of cigarettes that took-up cross-dressing?
  Gah! http://cfile25.uf.tistory.com/image/196275444E8D5D2B228E56
  The Karma looks absolutely awesome in comparison: http://cdn.head-fi.org/d/dd/dd7d09c3_rio-karma.jpg
  
  --
  Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
30. Re:Selll your stock. by theshowmecanuck · 2012-08-21 19:20 · Score: 1
  
  Nice to see some refreshing perspective on what is really important to buy.
  
  --
  -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
31. Re:Selll your stock. by Torinaga-Sama · 2012-08-24 03:01 · Score: 1
  
  It looks like a stopwatch? There is absolutely nothing sexy about a stopwatch. The sex appeal of cigarettes is well documented.
  It is all a matter of taste. I didn't own an i-Pod until the touch came out. I found the original interface too simple and I could never stomach using iTunes. However I have to recognize that my tastes are not the same as that the general population. Examining all the things i love that becomes painfully obvious.
  There is an elegance in simplicity, I just don't always like it. ;-)
  
  --
  (/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
Not adjusted for inflation, obviously. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 09:04 · Score: 5, Informative

If you actually read right to the end of the article, it states that adjusted for inflation, Microsoft is still over $850 billion. So while Apple is a gigantic company, it hasn't broken any records.
DISCLAIMER: I'm neither a PaidMicrosoftShill(tm) nor affected by the Apple Reality Distortion Field(tm)
1. Re:Not adjusted for inflation, obviously. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 09:14 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Apple just paid they're first dividend.
  Wow. I did not know that Apple just paid they are first dividend! My friend has an iPad and he says that it is hardware is well designed.
2. Re:Not adjusted for inflation, obviously. by Bigby · 2012-08-20 09:57 · Score: 1
  
  Mobile technology is in anything but a recession. Even if it were 1997, mobile couldn't be doing much better than right now. In fact, it might do worse as people could spend money doing things that don't make so much use of phones.
3. Re:Not adjusted for inflation, obviously. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 10:25 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  If this is not a record, then let's restate it saying that Apple reached $621 Billion with a PE ratio of about 15-16. Microsoft set the record with $619 Billion with an PE ration of 88, about what Facebook had with all its hype. Adjusted for inflation, that $619 Billion record is something like $880 Billion. Yes, it was impressive.
  To put this in scope, the second place company in the US is Exxon Mobile, trailing Apple by $200 Billion. Only 9 companies have a valuation of over $200 Billion.
  The point is, this is not an internet bubble where the whole market is out of whack.
  Oh, and by the way, where is Microsoft TODAY? $256 Billion, almost a quarter of what it was at its peak.
  So, yes, Microsoft had the largest valuation 13 years ago. Impressive. Apple has the largest valuation today. Impressive.
4. Re:Not adjusted for inflation, obviously. by treeves · 2012-08-20 12:48 · Score: 1
  
  And don't forget Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
  But who is this Tokien to whom you refer?
  
  --
  ...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
5. Re:Not adjusted for inflation, obviously. by Lord+Maud'Dib · 2012-08-20 16:56 · Score: 2
  
  The word is "preposition", or maybe you want to marry?
6. Re:Not adjusted for inflation, obviously. by voltorb · 2012-08-20 19:15 · Score: 2
  
  Indeed, if you take inflation into account, IBM doubles Apple http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/20/apple-is-not-the-most-valuable-company-in-the-history-of-the-world-ibm-won-the-prize-in-1967-with-a-value-of-1-3-trillion/
Inflation? by DarthBling · 2012-08-20 09:07 · Score: 5, Informative

I'm going to have to say no.

Based in 2012 dollars, Microsoft's 1999 value of $619 billion would be equivalent to $851 billion today. Apple still has quite a ways to go.
1. Re:Inflation? by Yvan256 · 2012-08-20 09:22 · Score: 1
  
  See an AC's reply above:
  "except Microsoft's high valuation was at the peak of the internet bubble meanwhile Apple's high valuation is at the nadir of the great recession...also Microsoft wasn't paying dividends then meanwhile Apple just paid they're first dividend."
2. Re:Inflation? by Wovel · 2012-08-20 09:22 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I guess that doesn't make as interesting a headline. That fact is buried in most of the stories.
3. Re:Inflation? by vlm · 2012-08-20 09:34 · Score: 1
  
  Both are tiny little fish compared to an establishment like "Standard Oil" which was well over a trillion, depending on who's imaginary figures you want to use.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
4. Re:Inflation? by NatasRevol · 2012-08-20 10:12 · Score: 2
  
  Fortunately their market cap has grown at about 100% per year for 4 years now.
  They'll catch MSFT's inflation adjusted peak before Christmas.
  
  --
  There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
5. Re:Inflation? by mrstrano · 2012-08-20 16:10 · Score: 2
  
  On the Internet "in history" means "in the past five years".
6. Re:Inflation? by NatasRevol · 2012-08-21 04:38 · Score: 1
  
  Just FYI, market cap and revenue growth are not the same.
  Sometimes numbers can have different meanings!
  
  --
  There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
7. Re:Inflation? by Yvan256 · 2012-08-21 09:46 · Score: 1
  
  I was merely quoting the AC, redirect your comment to him.
East India Company by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 09:10 · Score: 5, Interesting

What would be the value of the British east india company in today's dollars?
1. Re:East India Company by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 09:23 · Score: 1
  
  About 10 Vatican's and 20 Washington D.C's and 30 City of London's.
2. Re:East India Company by Yvan256 · 2012-08-20 09:25 · Score: 1
  
  Better ask a tea leaf.
3. Re:East India Company by iluvcapra · 2012-08-20 09:26 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Comparisons with the British East India Company are tricky, mainly because the BEIC was a government corporation. The BEIC flew its own flag, maintained its own military, engaged in private warfare, and it's credit was backed tacitly by the British crown -- more like Fanny Mae, it Fanny Mae was a trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund that owned half the real estate on the Asian continent, and had an air force capable of starving a city.
  Even Shell or Exxon aren't really comparable enterprises.
  
  --
  Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
4. Re:East India Company by Spy+Handler · 2012-08-20 09:44 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Donno but the South Sea Company in 1720 made a second round of stock offering and sold 1 million shares at 400 pounds each. That's 400 million pounds.
  Adjusted for inflation that's about 720 billion pounds, or in US money:
  1.2 trillion dollars
  And that's not even the whole company
5. Re:East India Company by fm6 · 2012-08-20 10:22 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  You're actually understating your case — shares eventually reached 1K. Then it became obvious that the company wasn't all that profitable and the shares lost about 90% of their value. Not likely to happen to Apple, of course, but it's a reminder of how investors can go crazy over a sexy stock.
6. Re:East India Company by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 10:30 · Score: 1
  
  Not likely to happen to Apple? The run up in Apple stock is speculation, they're one fad from a major adjustment in price.
7. Re:East India Company by blind+biker · 2012-08-20 10:32 · Score: 1
  
  Even Shell or Exxon aren't really comparable enterprises.
  Shell or Exxon aren't, but Saudi Aramco definitely is. I remember a story one of my professsors told us during a class on enterpreneurship (in the scientific field): he was working on a project for Saudi Aramco, and the price of petrol was temporarily down. He asked one of his superiors if that was causing them a problem. The answer "nah, this is only an issue for the small guys, like Shell."
  
  --
  "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
8. Re:East India Company by fm6 · 2012-08-20 10:55 · Score: 1
  
  The EIC didn't simply own a lot of land. They were effectively the sovereign rulers of India for about 80 years.
  However, you're wrong to call them a government corporation — John Company was founded and controlled by private individuals. If they'd been an arm of the British government, they probably would have had less power than they actually had.
9. Re:East India Company by __aarzwb9394 · 2012-08-20 10:56 · Score: 1
  
  in case you were wondering
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company
10. Re:East India Company by ThePeices · 2012-08-20 10:59 · Score: 1
  
  I dont know what is more disturbing, the fact that Fanny Mae had an air force, or that you would name a trillion dollar company after Mae's vagina...
11. Re:East India Company by LordLimecat · 2012-08-20 11:47 · Score: 1
  
  Dunno, but unless Im mistaken Apple does NOT have a navy, so Im gonna guess the East India company was worth more.
12. Re:East India Company by iluvcapra · 2012-08-20 12:05 · Score: 1
  
  It's complicated, the company was originally chartered by the Earl of Cumberland, who nowadays couldn't be considered an executive of the government, but in 1600 it's not as clear.
  - The EIC undertook commissions and carried out instructions or orders on behalf of the King and parliament, without clear remuneration -- they were something quite different from a contractor.
  - Along with carrying its own flag, it had the independent power to coin money, acquire territory without consultation of the British government, and it enforced criminal penalties over its territory.
  - Pitt's India Act created a Board of Control whereby the Company's operations in India were jointly administered by the British government and the Company. The management of the Company and the Government was a revolving door and people on either side, private and public, could hold executive authority. The salaries of BOC members were paid by the Company, and the Governor-General of India (a government official, appointed by the king and parliament) was directly responsible for supervising of Company officials (private employees) in India.
  - The Company and the government were economically entangled in unusual and opaque ways which nowadays would be considered not-arms-lenght or corrupt. The Privy council of the government contributed to bounties to help recover kidnapped EIC officers. Notably, when the India Office assumed the BEIC's operations in India, it did not purchase or compensate the Company; it's private army was similar absorbed by the British army. The cabinet portfolio of Secretary of State for India was created to replace the President of the Board of Control.
  - The Company was subject to numerous private laws. The Company was abolished by an Act of Parliament, and shareholders were only compensated properly years later at a discount.
  - The Company's records are archived by the UK government.
  
  --
  Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
13. Re:East India Company by fm6 · 2012-08-20 14:08 · Score: 1
  
  The fact that the UK government chartered and then de-chartered the EIC is beside the point All corporations operate under government charter.
  The Earl of Cumberland (who was still a commoner in 1600) was in no sense part of the government. He was an MP at the time. He got a charter and sold shares.
  John Company did a lot of things that we associate with governments. But in that period it was pretty common for private entities to control territory and fight wars. I live in what used to be the Columbia District of the Hudson Bay Company. They also had their own flag, had an army (they built Fort Vancouver just across the river from where I live in Portland) and even signed treaties. But they weren't an arm of the British Government; if they had been, they would have worked harder to maintain UK control south of the 49th parallel. But that would have meant encouraging Canadian settlers, who would have cleared land that HBC wanted to continue to exploit for their lucrative fur trade. So the region filled up with American settlers (despite HBC's best efforts to discourage them) and is now part of the U.S.
  By the same token, East India Company was beholden to its shareholders, not to the UK government. That's why they lost their charter — they were too busy exploiting India to actually rule it properly.
14. Re:East India Company by DerPflanz · 2012-08-20 18:27 · Score: 1
  
  In the 1600s in the Netherlands, tulips bulbs were sold the price of a house, because of speculation.
  That crashed, being the first market crash in history.
  
  --
  -- The Internet is a too slow way of doing things, you'd never do without it.
15. Re:East India Company by fm6 · 2012-08-21 13:50 · Score: 1
  
  There may be a disparity between Apple's actual ability to make money and the stock price. But 90%? Seems unlikely, not when they own a third of the cell phone market.
British East India? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 09:10 · Score: 2, Insightful

I can't believe Apple is more valuable than the British East India company, or any number of other ventures. You need to measure it in terms of global GDP at the time, or gold, or silver. All of these measures have their flaws (e.g., discovery of vast ammounts of gold in the New World distorted its value for a while). If you're just talking nominal US dollar value then fine; but that's not all of history. It's not such a simple thing to measure.
Most valuable private company ever at $910/share by evilcoop · 2012-08-20 09:10 · Score: 1, Insightful

Microsoft in 1999 was worth $850B in today's dollars. Apple has a ways to go to have the highest market cap ever.
Not for long by oldhack · 2012-08-20 09:12 · Score: 5, Interesting

Apple is replaying their history during 90s.
It's eerie, really. Soon after Macs began its success, MS sold their graphical OS through just about all hardware makers, Apple sued and lost, and Jobs's got ousted, and Apple shriveled up. Just replace "ousted" with "died" and MS/Windows with Google/Android.

--
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
1. Re:Not for long by davewoods · 2012-08-20 09:19 · Score: 1
  
  Sounds good, except that they are getting more money, not less money. Apple does not appear to be shriveling up at all, but instead, growing. Maybe I misunderstood your phrasing, but I (and TFA) disagree with the end of your sentence.
2. Re:Not for long by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 09:41 · Score: 1
  
  TFA doesn't disagree with a future prediction. It may not provide any basis for that prediction, but it also doesn't disagree with a possible down trend in an unknown future time period.
  
  That's the whole point of fortune telling and predicting the future. There is no way to know if its gonna happen until it happens.
3. Re:Not for long by sootman · 2012-08-21 08:22 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, because while riding from days-away-from-bankruptcy to most-valuable-company-in-the-world, nobody in the company learned ANYTING and they are DOOMED to repeat history. Uh-huh.
  
  --
  Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The secret to Apple's success by DRichardHipp · 2012-08-20 09:13 · Score: 5, Funny

http://www.sqlite.org/apple-and-sqlite.gif ;-)
1. Re:The secret to Apple's success by haruchai · 2012-08-20 09:19 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks. Made my day with that one.
  But I now have a bit of hate for SQLite, which is otherwise a great product.
  
  --
  Pain is merely failure leaving the body
2. Re:The secret to Apple's success by Yvan256 · 2012-08-20 09:28 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  And here I am without mod points...
3. Re:The secret to Apple's success by blueg3 · 2012-08-20 16:07 · Score: 1
  
  Never view a stock graph with a linear axis.
4. Re:The secret to Apple's success by haruchai · 2012-08-20 16:54 · Score: 1
  
  I know who he is, hence my comment
  
  --
  Pain is merely failure leaving the body
*publicly traded* company by kwerle · 2012-08-20 09:14 · Score: 1

It's hard to measure the value of private companies, but we should not ignore the fact that they do exists.
Not even close by gattis · 2012-08-20 09:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

Ever heard of the British East India Company?
Accessory inflation? by davewoods · 2012-08-20 09:14 · Score: 1

This does not account for all the new iPhone 5 chargers and accessories that will be selling in the near future.
This is just too funny by Dunbal · 2012-08-20 09:17 · Score: 5, Insightful

Facebook, a nothing income company that hasn't even found a working business model: IPO for 100 billion. Apple, a maker of expensive shiny trinkets, the largest market cap on the street. Benjamin Graham would have a lot to say about times like these. I sure hope most of your money is in bonds right now because this next one is going to hurt even more than the last one. But go on chumps, keep buying into the bubble. It's going to go up forever and we'll all be rich!

--
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
1. Re:This is just too funny by vlm · 2012-08-20 09:41 · Score: 2
  
  Benjamin Graham would have a lot to say about times like these.
  I don't think he would be pleased with FB which is virtually worthless, but APPL isn't all that bad at a PE ratio of 15. In the worst depths of the recession it hit 11 and at the peak of the credit bubble it was around 44. The real story is recently, like 2 years ago, the PE ratio was running around 20. Insane as it sounds, APPL revenue is growing much faster than their share price.
  Given a choice of govt bonds or savings account at roughly 0% or APPL at a PE around 15, eh, I'd chose APPL.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
2. Re:This is just too funny by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 10:07 · Score: 1
  
  Durr, I dunno. Since it was 'achieved' by a company with a market cap over $100 billion, maybe?
3. Re:This is just too funny by Dunbal · 2012-08-20 10:28 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly. 200 million income is nothing.Yeah it's more than you make or I make or slashdot makes, but 200 million is not that big of a company at all. Certainly not a 100 billion company.
  
  --
  Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
4. Re:This is just too funny by Dunbal · 2012-08-20 10:30 · Score: 1
  
  At the rate they are going I think the huge mistake will be saturating the market. You can't have exponential sales forever. There's a finite amount of people in the world. Incremental upgrades help, but after a while people are going to get fed up of paying full price (again) for virtually nothing.
  
  --
  Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
5. Re:This is just too funny by Dunbal · 2012-08-20 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  If you're paying full price for your bonds you are doing it wrong. Just sayin'
  
  --
  Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
6. Re:This is just too funny by getNewNickName · 2012-08-20 10:48 · Score: 1
  
  Given a choice of govt bonds or savings account at roughly 0% or APPL at a PE around 15, eh, I'd chose APPL.
  I dunno about you, but I would choose AAPL instead of these guys APPL.
7. Re:This is just too funny by vlm · 2012-08-20 23:39 · Score: 1
  
  LOL you got me there. Damn stocks with double letters I always seem to double the wrong one. Except for the mighty GOOG which I never call GGOG or whatever.
  Those two WILL eventually converge... its just that I don't realistically think it'll happen for a very long time or for arbitrary reasons like the result of a multiplication equation. Especially since they seem to have the revenue and profit margin to back up that kind of price.
  Really its not that apple is the most important company ever, its that the rest of the economy has been so methodically and effectively destroyed that the best thing we have left is what amounts to a phone maker and music seller. Pitiful really. Not a MRI machine maker who just moved their HQ to china. Not a car maker, they're all destroyed by mismanagement or impaired by government meddling.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Re:Not the Cleanest Comparison? by PhamNguyen · 2012-08-20 09:19 · Score: 1

Be fair, the author said "It's not the cleanest comparison" for precisely the reasons you stated. And the sentence is 100% correct, what clarification is needed? GDP is a measure of production, market cap is a measure of total worth. The reason people use GDP is there is no equivalent of market cap for nations that is actually measured in practice. So comparing GDP is the only way to get a rough sense of how much Apple is worth.
Worth? by Chemisor · 2012-08-20 09:20 · Score: 3, Informative

Let's not confuse what a company is worth with what a company costs.
Re:Apple vs. Microsoft. by Yvan256 · 2012-08-20 09:24 · Score: 1

Microsoft = Borg
Apple = Ferengi
posting to undo moderation by vyvepe · 2012-08-20 09:25 · Score: 1

posting to undo moderation
I would make a joke... by Abalamahalamatandra · 2012-08-20 09:27 · Score: 1

wondering how long it will be before Apple has its own armed forces, but...
Re:change of computing paradigm by Yvan256 · 2012-08-20 09:27 · Score: 1

And thanks to them, it pushed everyone forward, which is why my mother now has an easier time with Ubuntu on her laptop than with Windows.
Makes me happy by OrangeTide · 2012-08-20 09:31 · Score: 1

I don't work for Apple or even particularly like Apple products (I had a phase, so I still own a couple older models). But I do enjoy the benefits of money flowing into Cupertino and other South Bay communities. Job market in Silicon Valley is good, not just tech jobs but even construction is picking up a bit. The state and local governments are still pretty financially messed up.
But I do think one way to economic recovery is to make truck loads of money, then spend it. (sorry if that sounds like trickle-down economics)

--
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
1. Re:Makes me happy by jpmorgan · 2012-08-20 09:52 · Score: 1
  
  But I do think one way to economic recovery is to make truck loads of money, then spend it.
  That's the only way to economic recovery.
2. Re:Makes me happy by umghhh · 2012-08-20 10:19 · Score: 1
  
  The value of a company on the market at particular time is not what it earns these are two different things. Third different thing is how much a company having all the nice income is going to spend and actually spending. It is yet another thing how much spending by one such company affects local and not so local economy. I have serious doubt that a company like Apple does make a huge difference for economy of US not only if it did spend what it earned in a country where its HQ is located but also because none of huge corporations actually does that. It is not only Apple that is like this.
3. Re:Makes me happy by atlasdropperofworlds · 2012-08-20 10:23 · Score: 1
  
  Why do you need truck loads of money in order to start spending? Can't you spend a little if you're making a little? One thing is certain, stock-piling a ton of money is one way NOT to help the economy.
4. Re:Makes me happy by Grave · 2012-08-20 10:29 · Score: 1
  
  Well then perhaps Apple should spend more of that massive amount of cash they have sitting around.
5. Re:Makes me happy by foniksonik · 2012-08-20 15:11 · Score: 1
  
  Only if by spending it there is a high probability of a nice return. The more spent though the less of a return is needed ( but has to be higher than just a plain old security bond).
  
  --
  A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Re:Given that Apple has more $$$ than most countri by Shagg · 2012-08-20 09:33 · Score: 1

Who says they are?

--
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Pain by flex941 · 2012-08-20 09:33 · Score: 1

The more it grows the more painful will it be when it rapidly shrinks or even suddenly collapses. And it will. Eventually.

This is The Prophecy.
I don't think Apple is worth this much... by cooperaaaron · 2012-08-20 09:35 · Score: 1

That's it.
Re:200+ countries? by Amouth · 2012-08-20 09:42 · Score: 2

http://www.iso.org/iso/home/standards/country_codes/country_names_and_code_elements_txt.htm
According to ISO there are 249 of them

--
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Re:Especially AFRICAN countries... by hawguy · 2012-08-20 09:58 · Score: 1

"Apple alone is worth more than what 200+ countries in the world could produce in an entire year."
What's the betting that EVERY country in the third world hellhole that is AFRICA is in that 200+? Hilarious.
When do you think AFRICANS will be producing iPads and iPods? How about NEVER. How about some time after MONKEYS produce them?
I think the Africans will be next in line as cheap labor after the standard of living and incomes in China and India improve to their point where they are no longer cheap yet they will all want access to cheap imported goods. iPads aren't made in China because rural farmers are naturally good at assembling electronics, but because the $10/day they get paid for the work is much more than they'd earn on the farm and the work is much easier despite the long hours.
It will take years, perhaps decades, to get to the point where Africa becomes a major manufacturing hub, but I really believe that day will come.
Bubble by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 09:59 · Score: 2, Informative

Bubble bubble bubble.
http://slopeofhope.typepad.com/.a/6a00e009898222883301761756d819970c-800wi
Gonna blow.
Re:change of computing paradigm by DickBreath · 2012-08-20 10:04 · Score: 2

Yes, and I have to credit Apple for that.

This was back when Apple was all about technology and innovation.

Now it is all about perception and style. And trying to become a new monopolist. Apple's mobile OS doesn't even have real garbage collection.

I also think Apple's "most valuable company" status is just a matter of perception. If the stockholders were to get spooked and start selling, that value would vanish in the wind just like it can or has with so many other companies.

I was once a longtime card carrying Apple fanboy. What I never realized in my youth was that it never was about "the rest of us". The common man couldn't afford much of the cool Apple gear I got to play with as a developer. That's just like today. It's perception and style. Some people do have iPhones and iPads. Some people drive expensive cars. A lot of people drive Hondas and Toyotas and get Android phones with dual core 1 GB ram for $1 with a $100 gift card back on 2 year contract.

--

I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Haven't we seen this movie before by cpwegener · 2012-08-20 10:10 · Score: 1

Before everyone gets carried away do we remember when one square mile of Tokyo rel estate was worth more than the entire state of California?

No matter what the stock price a company that sells computers and gadgets will never be the world's most valuable company.

Regards,
Chris

--
Regards, Chris
Re:Really.... by Cederic · 2012-08-20 10:18 · Score: 1

Is really apple worth more than the actual product of 200 countries?
No. It's a stupid measure made by stupid people that have a fucking clue about the thing they're getting excited by.
Value of a company : How much it would cost to buy
GDP : Domestic output of a country
One is a time based measure, the other a static representation of how much someone would pay for something if they were stupid enough to buy into the hype or had spotted the gullibility of the fuckwits that have.
I hope that if any of my pensions are invested in Apple that the idiot pension fund managers sell now. Sadly their performance recently leads me to believe they'll be buying right now, which is why I now work for companies with a defined benefits scheme and not one that leaves my chance of retirement in the hands of overpaid idiots incapable of even matching the returns on the market indicies, let alone beating them.
In other news, the north sea holds more water than the daily overflow from my cistern.
Re:BIAS by SunTzuWarmaster · 2012-08-20 10:20 · Score: 2

"Largest Technology Company, as of this morning, is valued at $621 billion, thanks to a stock price that spiked at $663.10 per share (and that has risen this afternoon). That finally beats Now-Second Largest Technology Company, who previously held the record for most valuable company in 1999 at $619 billion. Incredibly, Largest Technology Company has almost doubled its valuation in the last year, when it topped Non-Technology Company for most valuable American company with a valuation of $346 billion. It's not the cleanest comparison, but to give you an idea of how much $621 billion actually is, only 23 countries had a GDP higher than that in 2011. So, basically, Largest Technology Company alone is worth more than what 200+ countries in the world could produce in an entire year."
Can you reasonably argue that this is biased reporting? What company is it biased towards? It doesn't even say something like: "The maker of product". It even gives context to the value. When a technology company becomes (arguably) the largest company in recorded history, I expect to SEE IT REPORTED ON SLASHDOT .
...and in tomorrow's news... by crutchy · 2012-08-20 10:26 · Score: 1

...apple stock price falls and yesterday's post about apple being the "most valuable" company is no longer relevent

stock price isn't exactly any kind of indicator of value... surely the world would have realized this after the whole dotcom bubble and collapse

the headline should have been "Apple Is Now the Most Valuable Company In History today"
Angry by DaMattster · 2012-08-20 10:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

And yet Apple contributes very little to the domestic US economy, i.e. no manufacturing jobs. What if Apple made its devices here in the US and accepted a value o 600 billion instead of 621 billion? I own Apple hardware but I hardly place Apple on any kind of pedestal.
1. Re:Angry by LordLimecat · 2012-08-20 11:57 · Score: 1
  
  Companies will do whatever necessary to capture sufficient market share to stay as profitable as possible. This is a simple fact of human motivation and the desire for wealth. This means that if it is cheaper to manufacture elsewhere and doing so will decrease costs and increase profits, they will do so. You can place tariffs on those companies, but they will then move elsewhere.
  Just keep that in mind before you go and vote companies out of your state; if you want a good lesson in this, watch what happens in france over the next year or so (with their gigantic tax "penalties" for being rich).
2. Re:Angry by ceoyoyo · 2012-08-20 13:28 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Except for their 50,000 US employees. And the $4 billion a year the iOS app store sends out to independent developers, mostly in the US. And all those music industry people who make money from selling music on iTunes. There's a study that says Apple actually supports about 300,000 jobs in the US.
  Yes, they support a lot of manufacturing jobs overseas, but it's pretty silly to say they contribute little to the US economy.
3. Re:Angry by theswimmingbird · 2012-08-20 14:59 · Score: 1
  
  I absolutely loathe Apple. But if they made their tech here in the states, I admit I would be one of the first in line to buy it.
4. Re:Angry by foniksonik · 2012-08-20 16:01 · Score: 1
  
  Of course they have directly created tens of thousands of service, creative and management jobs. Add to that the indirect employment of extra corporate help desk, external repair, supply chain and sales.
  Apple is a major US economic contributor. Manufacturing is a big deal but it is not the largest segment of Apple employees.
  
  --
  A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
5. Re:Angry by DNS-and-BIND · 2012-08-20 19:51 · Score: 1
  
  If Apple put its manufacturing jobs in America, then Apple would very shortly be a $0 billion company. Just imagine the headline: "New factory to be built by mega-corp right here in River City". Think of all the groups that would oppose it, and think about how well-funded and organized these groups are. They have money, lawyers, and the media on their side. It's the Kobayashi Maru.
  
  --
  Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
6. Re:Angry by roman_mir · 2012-08-20 19:58 · Score: 1
  
  Apple has obligations to the investors, if they make money then they are successful, everything else, including how and who and where and why they hire is completely incidental to that. Apple provides you (or whoever their customers are) with the product that they (possibly you) want, that's the extent of their obligation to the larger society, and this obligation is not a moral one, just an economic one.
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
7. Re:Angry by avandesande · 2012-08-21 06:25 · Score: 1
  
  It's the lack of jobs for the working class that is destroying this country
  
  --
  love is just extroverted narcissism
8. Re:Angry by ceoyoyo · 2012-08-21 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  You mean like the thirty thousand retail employees Apple has in the US? Or the thirty thousand construction jobs they create building stores? Maybe the 7,000 people building their new campus? Or the 8000 call centre employees?
9. Re:Angry by avandesande · 2012-08-21 07:24 · Score: 1
  
  Service jobs aren't manufacturing jobs and a family depending on them will be below poverty level. The fact of the matter is that it would be a order of magnitude greater if the istuff was manufactured here.
  My aren't we the apple apologist?
  
  --
  love is just extroverted narcissism
10. Re:Angry by ceoyoyo · 2012-08-21 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  "My aren't we the apple apologist?"
  Because I pointed out that the statement "Apple contributes very little to the domestic US economy" is ridiculous? On the contrary, you seem to have some sort of Apple vendetta.
11. Re:Angry by avandesande · 2012-08-21 07:58 · Score: 1
  
  We have hundreds of corporations in the US that trot out the same lame excuse "sure we offshore our manufacturing but we still bring xyz jobs to the US". In aggregate it has cost the US millions of decent paying jobs that are a stepping stone for people getting out of poverty. People and companies that 'think different' are cheap, nobody seems to want to 'do different'.
  
  --
  love is just extroverted narcissism
Re:Really.... by TheSync · 2012-08-20 10:35 · Score: 1

Value of a company : How much it would cost to buy
GDP : Domestic output of a country
Indeed, we should be comparing the market capitalization of a company with the inclusive wealth of a country.
A market cap of $622 billion is higher than the current inclusive wealth of Ecuador ($360 billion) or Kenya ($122 billion).
Re:200+ countries? by umghhh · 2012-08-20 10:36 · Score: 1

Some of entities included on ISO list do not have such a thing as GDP.
Re:Not the Cleanest Comparison? by mirix · 2012-08-20 10:36 · Score: 1

Yeah, that's a poorly worded sentence. It should state that 200+ countries each have a smaller GDP than apple's market cap. It is written like they are combined.

--
Sent from my PDP-11
Re:Really.... by Cederic · 2012-08-20 10:42 · Score: 1

Interesting measure - and one that's a little flawed. Although I like the concept of counting education as having value, that value should drop as the supply of educated people rises.
So Kenya and Ecuador increasing their human capital would dilute the stock of educated people worldwide, leading to its value dropping everywhere.
Plus of course the evil insinuation that people have a value which can be traded for other forms of value such as natural resources or manufactured goods. Although in economics that's very true, in society I really don't want it to be.
Please mod this up! by geoffrobinson · 2012-08-20 10:44 · Score: 1

"If this is not a record, then let's restate it saying that Apple reached $621 Billion with a PE ratio of about 15-16. Microsoft set the record with $619 Billion with an PE ration of 88, about what Facebook had with all its hype."
And this, in a nutshell, is the difference.

--
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
A Better Measure of Apple's Power by guttentag · 2012-08-20 10:49 · Score: 1

In May I stopped by the Sunnyvale Main Post Office (which has been at its current location since 1975 and had a lease on the building through 2016) and found notices posted on the doors stating that they were moving to the northern edge of the city in two weeks. Turns out Apple was in such desperate need of additional office space they signed a build-to-suit agreement with the landlord, who presumably was paid enough money to make it worthwhile to exercise a termination provision in the lease and kick the Post Office out. I forgot about this and drove over there again a couple weeks after their last day to find the site already leveled! Gone. I don't see why they couldn't have just taken Palm's old HQ across the street... HP's not doing anything useful with it.

Anyone ever have Microsoft or Exxon level their city's main post office?
1. Re:A Better Measure of Apple's Power by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-08-20 11:48 · Score: 1
  
  Microsoft's campus is in what was originally the middle of nowhere - it's on the southern outskirts of Redmond near its border with Bellevue - so there are no post offices in the vicinity. Most free topo maps of the area actually predate the existence of that campus, and it's pretty funny when you set them side by side with an up-to-date map.
2. Re:A Better Measure of Apple's Power by Macrat · 2012-08-20 12:23 · Score: 1
  
  In May I stopped by the Sunnyvale Main Post Office...
  The "main" Sunnyvale Post Office is in downtown Sunnyvale.
  You're complaining about a warehouse sorting center.
Small Correction by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-20 10:55 · Score: 1

Market capitalization is just the total value of the company,
Not exactly. Market Cap is the total number of publicly held shares multiplied by the share price. The share price, is whatever someone last sold a share of the company to someone else for. In reality, if everyone holding shares tried to sell them, they would get NOWHERE near the last price paid for the shares. The share price will go down FAST if there is more supply (more people selling). Market Cap truly is a somewhat meaningless metric because really it is a measure of the marginal value of marginal portion of the company's overall value as measured by the price paid for that marginal portion (the most recent share traded). To take that and extrapolate as the total value of the company is absolutely bullshit and anyone who falls for it is a fool. Go ahead and believe that it is worth that. Now everyone try to sell their shares. Yeah, right. Market Cap != Value of Company.
1. Re:Small Correction by Compaqt · 2012-08-20 23:51 · Score: 1
  
  Well, OK, but still: Market cap functions as a baseline if you're trying to buy (the whole) company, doesn't it?
  In the buyouts we've seen recently (such as Sun), didn't the company (i.e., shareholders) get a multiple of the share price?
  And IBM was offering X multiple of the shareprice. They didn't bite. So Oracle offered that much more.
  Meaning they paid more than market cap.
  
  --
  I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
2. Re:Small Correction by GuB-42 · 2012-08-21 00:21 · Score: 1
  
  Of course if everyone wants to sell and no one wants to buy, the value plummets.
  But if I want to buy all of Apple, I need to spend at least $621 billion.
  The fact that the value of a company can vary doesn't make it less meaningful.
3. Re:Small Correction by Sir_Sri · 2012-08-21 06:07 · Score: 1
  
  Ok, total value of the company at the currently listed price. The companies assets and liabilities are a separate thing, but sort of maybe factored into the share prices.
  Obviously if you want to buy a lot of shares, or sell a lot of shares the price will change.
  As I say, it doesn't reflect anything meaningful particularly. Share prices move for a lot of reasons.
Re:200+ countries? by mark-t · 2012-08-20 11:19 · Score: 1

What is your definition of an "actual country"?

--
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The Bubble Has Reached Its Apex by sudonim2 · 2012-08-20 11:19 · Score: 2

...Time to start shorting Apple.
Re:Really.... by AK+Marc · 2012-08-20 11:26 · Score: 1

So Apple should buy Kenya.

--
Learn to love Alaska
Re:200+ countries? by Raemond · 2012-08-20 11:29 · Score: 2

Just looking at the first page-full of those, Åland Islands are an autonomous region of Finland, Bouvet Island is a dependant territory of Norway and the British Indian Ocean Territory is an overseas territory of the UK. The distinction between sovereign country and parts of sovereign countries and their dependancies is not so clear...
Good luck! by SuperKendall · 2012-08-20 11:44 · Score: 1

Perhaps there will still be an empty cardboard box for you under the bridge along with the guys that shorted at $100, $200, $300, etc.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In year 2000, it sold for less than cash by EricScott · 2012-08-20 11:49 · Score: 1

I purchased Apple stock back in 2000 when it was selling for less than the cash it had in the bank. That is, the brand was worth less than zero. This was right around the height of the internet bubble, and Apple had no "internet play". I bought the stock because I was starting a new company that would consume all my time and wouldn't have time to look at my "portfolio". So I bought Apple, because, get this, it was about the "safest" play out there. Because Apple had a lot of cash in the bank and net income, I figured the worst thing that could happen is it would remain about where it was.
Re:200+ countries? by Anubis+IV · 2012-08-20 11:51 · Score: 4, Informative

Here's Wikipedia's list of sovereign states. It lists 206, and separates them out nicely based on claims made against their sovereignty and the like. There are 203 sovereign states that are recognized by at least one UN member state, 2 that are only recognized by non-UN states but that have declared their independence and control some territory, and 1 that has declared its independence but is not recognized by anyone at all, despite controlling some territory.
Re:change of computing paradigm by mikestew · 2012-08-20 12:18 · Score: 1

Apple's mobile OS doesn't even have real garbage collection.
iOS never had any garbage collection. And now with something as cool as Automatic Reference Counting, it probably never will.
Yummmm, reality. It's what for dinner by dave562 · 2012-08-20 12:27 · Score: 1

Is Apple REALLY worth more than the other 5 major players in the tech industry?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-apple-really-worth-more-sum-microsoft-dell-google-facebook-and-hp
Re:Really.... by treeves · 2012-08-20 12:49 · Score: 1

Absolutely. Kenya is undervalued.

--
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Re:Really.... by TheSync · 2012-08-20 13:35 · Score: 1

So Kenya and Ecuador increasing their human capital would dilute the stock of educated people worldwide, leading to its value dropping everywhere.
Economists would argue that if the people of Kenya and Ecuador become more educated, there would be even more great ideas, innovation, and kinds of production into the world that would allow everyone to become more productive (imagine Kenyan Einsteins, Steve Jobs, etc.)
Depends on your definition by Snaller · 2012-08-20 14:01 · Score: 1

Valuable as in greed - sure. valuable as in propelling the planet forward - hell no, they'll sue anybody over the most ridiculous things - trying to prevent progress.
Oh and time to sell the stock, it can only go down hill now.

--
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Re:Really.... by ChunderDownunder · 2012-08-20 14:06 · Score: 1

Apple should buy Ecuador.
Then the UK agree to release Julian Assange into exile. He steps off the plane to find his cherished Bolivarian socialist refuge has been overrun by hipster Manzanistas. Noooooooooo!
Despite the detractors by msobkow · 2012-08-20 14:16 · Score: 1

Despite their detractors and legal issues, it would seem that Apple is laughing all the way to the bank for both revenue and stock value.
Say what you will, the "walled garden" would seem to be quite acceptable to a significant percentage of the population.

--
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Bubble by Evil+Pete · 2012-08-20 14:49 · Score: 2

I smell a bubble about to burst. If the market is this hyped up anything less than a staggering improvement will cause disappointment. Maybe it will all be ok but I'd be selling right now.

--
Bitter and proud of it.
As opposed to Google by Brannon · 2012-08-20 15:44 · Score: 1

who manufactures all Android phones out of hemp using union labor right here in the USA.
Re:They only just started being a growth stock. by IntlHarvester · 2012-08-20 18:12 · Score: 1

Only in the last few weeks have investors started to think "hmm, perhaps this Apple company has something going" and is suddenly starting to accelerate the stock price to match other popular company P/E values.
Actually IMO it's more "Only in the last few week, investors realized Windows 8 is going to bomb hard". (Semi regretfully, if I cared about day-trading, predictable money could have been made.)

--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Not sure that has an effect by SuperKendall · 2012-08-20 18:32 · Score: 1

Apple's fortunes at this point I don't think are much affected by Microsoft.
I'm actually hoping Windows 8 and Surface do well, the Surface hardware looks really interesting.
But Apple has many growth areas where Microsoft just has such a small foothold, it's really more up to Apple to mess up than it is likely a competitor can overtake them for some time.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1. Re:Not sure that has an effect by IntlHarvester · 2012-08-21 06:28 · Score: 1
  
  Sure, Apple is fundamentally very solid. However, there's tons of negative hype about Windows 8 going on in various investor forums, specifically regarding Apple, so I do think that's a big factor in the recent runup. (Along with iphone 5 anticipation.)
  And some of that is "real"; specifically there's going to be a battle for enterprise tablet adoption between iPad and MS Surface-type hardware, which imo Apple has a very good chance of winning.
  
  --
  Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Re:Most valuable private company ever at $910/shar by thedarknite · 2012-08-20 18:57 · Score: 1

Saudi Aramco was estimated to be worth $781 billion in 2005

--
A game has objectives and is competitive, anything else is just play
Still not the first trillion dollar company. by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · 2012-08-21 01:07 · Score: 2

Let us not forget about the first company to ever break the $1 trillion mark. That was the Chinese oil company PetroChina which did it on November 06, 2007 (I think that is the correct date it doesn't specify in the article so I used the date line). The value has since pulled back quite a bit to reasonable levels and most of the shares were still held by the government but it was the first company to hit the trillion dollar mark.

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Time to offend someone
Trading one gorilla for the other by sl4shd0rk · 2012-08-21 01:25 · Score: 1

Can't say this is any better than what we had though. The tech industry needs room to innovate and foster small ideas so they can turn into The Next Big Thing. This is what drives the economy, the job market, and industry growty. You can't have that when someone is always out-gunning you with litigation or strongarm industry tactics. All you get that way is a stagnation and monoculture.

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Re:change of computing paradigm by Xest · 2012-08-21 01:26 · Score: 2

"Some people do have iPhones and iPads. Some people drive expensive cars. A lot of people drive Hondas and Toyotas and get Android phones with dual core 1 GB ram for $1 with a $100 gift card back on 2 year contract."
Well put, a lot of the arguments I see from Apple fanboys is that "Most people seem to think the iPhone is the best", or "Apple obviously does X right because the majority of people have iPhones".
The whole argument is based on fantasy, Apple's global smartphone marketshare is 17%, their phone marketshare (including non-smartphones) is about 2%. The idea that Apple has any kind of majority backing their product is completely and utterly false. The same goes for Apple computers too - the fact is, the real fact is, that the vast majority of people don't choose Apple, they choose Android, they choose Windows, so the idea that Apple's way is the right way based on some kind of consensus simply isn't true. The only place it holds true is tablets, but even that early lead advantage is slipping away quarter on quarter now that there are decent alternatives out there.
The reality is that most people aren't interested in fancy stuff like you say, some are sure, but most just want a product that gets the job done and doesn't cost an extortionate amount regardless of what fucking shape or colour it is, or how much they can brag they spent on it.
The Red Bull by DarthVain · 2012-08-21 02:39 · Score: 1

More likely Apple would empoly the Red Bull to herd all the existing unicorns carring iPhones into the ocean for over sea delivery to the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Unicorn
Re:Given that Apple has more $$$ than most countri by sconeu · 2012-08-21 04:12 · Score: 1

Have you seen current "IP" laws?

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General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Is that in 1999 dollars? (1.8x todays dollars) by lpq · 2012-08-21 04:36 · Score: 1

Using absolute numbers in share value, as absolute sales figures at box offices is a poor indicator of record setting sales numbers, doesn't accurate reflect record setting value.
Re:One other thing... by Sir_Sri · 2012-08-21 06:27 · Score: 1

Not really no. That's sort of a first year analysis of the problem, but things get more sophisticated quickly.
Lets say I have two businesses at the start of some time period.
Company A: Revenue 10 billion dollars, profit 1 billion dollars.
Company B: Revenue 20 billion dollars, losses of 1 billion dollars.
After some time
Company A: Revenue 15 Billion, profit 1.5 billion.
Company B: Revenue 50 billion, losses of 2 billion.
So company B is now a much bigger company, and worth quite a bit more than before, even though it still has a negative profit by your measure.
Layered on top of those are things like relationships with other companies and corporate governance structure, which value a lot to investors. Whatever one may think of turfing out Steve Jobs, the Apple board, they at least had the ability to do that, whereas facebook shareholders can't easily turf out Zuck, for example.
This is essentially how Sony's game business still exists next to nintendo. Nintendo makes more money, by a long shot, but the Playstation ecosystem, even though it cost Sony money for quite a while, ended up quite a bit larger overall and giving shareholders more assets in total.
Re:Given that Apple has more $$$ than most countri by Shagg · 2012-08-21 07:49 · Score: 1

What I meant was... what makes you think the government isn't paying attention to Apple?
It's easy to see that Copyright laws are written to benefit the MAFIAA. However, the current patent law mess is what is allowing Apple to go after Samsung.

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Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Valuable? by UltraZelda64 · 2012-08-21 08:16 · Score: 1

They must be as valuable as yesterday's diarrhea then.
Re:No, time to buy by kaatochacha · 2012-08-21 11:13 · Score: 1

Whenever I hear someone say "only an idiot would sell right now", I immediately want to sell.
Re:No, time to buy by SuperKendall · 2012-08-21 11:24 · Score: 1

Well I said that at $100, $200, $300, $400...
And now it's well about $600.
But at least you lose nothing if you sell, it's the people shorting that are screwed.

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"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Re:200+ countries? by Svippy · 2012-08-21 19:28 · Score: 1

Well, I'll be damned. I stand corrected. Thank you.

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Clicked pie.