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Microsoft Is Now More Valuable Than Alphabet (cnbc.com)
Microsoft has surged 40 percent over the past 12 months to become more valuable than Alphabet. "As of Tuesday's close, Microsoft was worth $749 billion and Alphabet's market capitalization stood at $739 billion," reports CNBC. From the report: Microsoft's latest rally has been sparked by growth in its cloud computing business, which is bigger than Google's though it still trails Amazon Web Services. In March, Microsoft reorganized its Windows and Devices Group and moved its engineering resources into other units, including one focusing on cloud and artificial intelligence. Both Microsoft and Alphabet beat analysts' expectations in the first quarter. Microsoft still trails behind Apple's market valuation of $923 billion and Amazon's $782 billion market cap.
This seems entirely academic to me. They're about the same size and neither is out for your good.
And the difference seems to be mostly from re-arranging things on paper to boot. Colour me suitably impressed.
Comparing Microsoft to Google is embarrassing. Google makes much of its revenue from ads, Microsoft is extremely well rounded tech company selling a OS, Azure, Xbox, Office Suite, Cloud services, and hardware. Now comparing Apple to Microsoft would be a much more equal comparison.
Then I learned that Apple reported net income of 50B annually recently.
Apparently, marketing works. They probably have the highest markup margin in tech.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
According to cocaine nose jobs from WallStreet?
(Sorry, I've never been convinced by the stock market - to me it's one enormous speculation).
Then I learned that Apple reported net income of 50B annually recently.
They've been around that number for the last three years. Please do keep up.
Apparently, marketing works.
Companies don't get to Apple's size without provide a shit ton of value to customers. Might not be value to you but it definitely is value to a lot of people and it sure as shit isn't just marketing.
They probably have the highest markup margin in tech.
No they do not. It's not at all uncommon for software companies to have higher margins than Apple. Microsoft routinely has higher net margins than Apple. On average around 5% higher which is a HUGE amount.
Man, that's a lot of underscores.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Apple, Microsoft and Facebook have achieved their huge "market cap" simply by issuing more shares of stock than anyone else -- billions of shares.
Umm, you do realize that if you put more shares out they will be worth less individually, right? The share price isn't fixed so you don't get a bigger market cap just by issuing more shares. There has to be demand for the shares regardless of the number of them. Berkshire Hathaway famously hasn't split their shares for a long time so each share is worth tens of thousands of dollars. You can have the same market cap with fewer shares with a higher value or more shares with a lesser value. It's literally identical to saying a $20 bill is identical in value to two $10 bills. It's only the total value that matters.
That's slightly less wrong than the original dumbass, but still rather out to lunch.
In very simple terms stocks are just a representation of ownership. If I start a business, I own 100% of the stock. If I then decide I would like some cash instead of ownership, I can sell you 50% of my stock. Now you and I own an equal share of the business. If the business earns a profit, we each get 50% of the profit (this is known as dividends). When a major business decision needs to be made, we each get an equal say. If the business gets bought up by an outside entity, we split the price of the sale. Etc.
Of course each of us is free to further sell our one half to as many people as we like. And if we agree to it together, we can split our shares to slow for a finer grain of subdivision. This is where the other guy was confused. If you and I each own 50% of 1000, worth $100 each, we can agree that we each own 50% of 10,000 worth $10 each. The number of shares doesn't affect the goal value of the company, nor does it have anything to do with debt; it only affects the unit price of the stock.
I'm no expert, but does issuing more shares not just mean you are more in debt?
No. Debt is a different thing. Shares are not a loan, they are a percentage ownership in the company. When you issue stock for sale you are literally selling a portion of the company. Nothing is being loaned. Debt holders typically get repaid before anyone else. Equity holders typically get paid last.
That's not to say that the new owners won't expect a return on their investment but the expectation is that this will come from company growth without a fixed timeline or cash outlay. Generally speaking equity is usually more expensive than debt because the risk to the investor is higher. Research "cost of capital" if you want to understand more.
Aren't shares essentially taking a mortgage on your company, but you do not even have to pay anything back, beyond empty promises.
No they aren't like a mortgage at all. The new owners will expect a return on their investment, this will come in the form of a growing company profits. If the company doesn't deliver those profits at some point the stock price will plunge and the company will either be sold/liquidated or will be unable to raise additional capital. If the company cannot raise capital and isn't profitable then they will go bankrupt.
One evil empire just pulled ahead of another evil empire.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Apple is so close, they will probably be first to $1 Trillion. But they may be caught soon enough if they don't start innovating. Mid range phones are getting better and better, and it's becoming very hard to justify spending $1000 on a new phone. My phone cost $300 and there really isn't anything it doesn't do. It also doesn't have any performance problems that I can see. The camera is great, although not as good as an iPhone. However, with the extra $700 left over I have a lot of money to spend on an actual camera. Same goes for Apple's other products such as the MacBook and iPad. There's a lot of competition with their laptops and tablets and about the only thing that keeps people coming back is their respective OS, but people will only pay so much for the OS.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Yeah, it's terrible that their products are easy to use and tend to work well. Horrible.
I don't respond to AC's.
To be fair, you're comparing a software company to a hardware one.
No I am not. Apple is a software company at its core. No less an authority than Steve Jobs himself has said so publicly. Not a traditional one to be sure but they don't actually make any of the hardware they sell so they by definition cannot be a hardware company. A company is what it makes and for all practical purposes the only thing Apple actually makes themselves is software. They design some of the hardware but that's not the same thing.
According to Business Insider,
Apple : 63% of the revenue come from iPhone Sales (Hardware), 11% from iPad (Hardware), 11% from Mac (Hardware) and 5% from other product (Hardware). Only 11% are from services (software). So it's 89% Hardware and 11% Software.
Microsoft : 11% are from XBox (Hardware) and 5% are from Surface. Then there's 28% from Office Products (Software), 22% from Windows Server & Azure (Software), 18% from others (Most of it is Software), 9% from Windows (Software), and 7% from Ads (Software). So it's 16% Hardware and 84% Software.
I stand my point.
Elok
It is not just older vs newer evil, these companies have different evil based on their business model.
Apple is a hardware company, their evil is planned obsolescence
Google is an advertising company, their evil is invasion of privacy
Microsoft is a software company, their evil is proprietary software lock down
Amazon is an online shopping company, their evil is destroying the local economy
I agree there is bound to be a major breach of a major cloud provider that will damage cloud's reputation, creating a major P/R kick to the nuts.
I'm not saying cloud is necessarily less secure, only that breaches will affect a lot of companies at the same time, creating a P/R nightmare. It's comparable to car crashes versus plane crashes. Your chance of dying in a car is higher per mile, but it rarely makes the news because deaths are piecemeal, unlike jet crashes.
It's not necessarily fair, but it's the way news works, setting cloud up for an ugly future.
Table-ized A.I.
Or issue class B shares with lesser voting powers, and class C shares who get in the back of the line when there's a bankruptcy, and so forth. These are all ways to keep the original invetors happy, or as ways to maneuver around dislodge the original owner, etc. This happens with private companies, since when becoming public you have to be much more transparent and follow external rules.