Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Big Apple...


Wow, a decade ago I would have never imagined this...

If you haven't heard, Apple, Inc. today passed Micro$oft to become the number two company in the world (behind Exxon Mobile). And the number one technology company in the world. I wonder if Bill Gates thought that this moment would happen when he agreed to invest a little cash into Steve Jobs' Little Fruit Company to build investor/customer confidence? Could we mark this day as a passing of the guard?

Time will tell...

5 comments:

jedited said...

only an idiot would believe that Apple is bigger than WalMart, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Google, GE, IBM, BofA, JP Morgan Chase, AT&T, Coca-Cola, Disney, HP, Wells Fargo, Chevron, etc, etc.
According to Fortune which measures actual numbers like Revenues, Apple is #253.
Don't forget that according to the stock market, AOL was bigger than Time Warner and it was AOL who purchased Time Warner, not the other way around.
I will admit that I'm not Apple's biggest fan, but I will concede that they are a VERY successful company. But the 2nd largest company in the US?!?! Come one people!

Conscientious Objector said...

If you read the article then you'd notice that the way they are rating them is "market capitalization" not revenue.

If you want to go by that then of course they're not the biggest, but the rating was by what it was worth, not what it makes. That clear for ya?

And as for revenue, Apple is slowly closing in on Microsoft's profits. At the current rate, within a couple years it should pass their revenue as well.

jedited said...

First I have a correction.
I think I was looking at Fortune's worldwide list. In looking at Fortune's US only list, Apple is #56.
Now to address Conscientious Objector.
First, My MAIN point is market cap is STUPID at best. Re-read my comments about AOL. The stock market is NOT rational ESPECIALLY in the short term. During the dotcom boom ALL kinds of ridiculous companies were valued at tens of BILLIONS of dollars that no longer exist (and NEVER made a profit). Another example, what changed between Mar 2009 when Disney had a market cap of around $30 bil and now when their market cap is $66 bil?!? NOTHING! Their revenues and profit are not that much different.
Second, Apple is MOSTLY a hardware company and to compare them to a software ONLY company like Microsoft is silly. But even then you are SADLY mistaken if you think that Apple at $36.5 bil is going to surpass Microsoft at $58.4 bil and when comparing profits, the comparsion is WORSE. Apple at $5.7 bil to MS at $14.5 bil. It would take Apple 5 years to overtake Microsoft and that's IF Microsoft saw NO revenue growth and IF Apple can maintain 12% revenue growth. Both HIGHLY unlikely.
As far as technology companies of any kind Apple is behind HP (#10), IBM (#20), Microsoft (#36), and Dell (#38). And in terms of profit, they are only better than Dell.
Again even though I HATE Apple, I do recognize that they are a successful company and I can appreciate that. I can also appreciate that they have made an INCREDIBLE turn-around. But don't drink the kool-aid. Don't believe everything that you hear from your cult leader Steve Jobs.

Unknown said...

Comparing apples to oranges. Microsoft is a SOFTWARE company and Apple is a consumer electronics company! The comparison or oooooh factor everyone is looking for is 20 years ago. Nobody really cares about Apple's software offerings other than Mac users, which is less than 7% of the world PC market.

So do the math. Apple sells a bunch of phones and music players and somehow is still being compared to Microsoft. Why not compare them to Sony? After all, the are basically in the same business at this point.

not a real blog said...

It will be interesting to see if Apple continues to climb.

What I find most interesting is at this point it looks like Bill Gates is going to go down in history as a dedicated philanthropist and humanitatian, while Steve Jobs has the reputation as being a yelling, bratty control freak.

I never, ever, thought it would go down that way.