Apple now bigger than Microsoft

[operator kos]

I guess I haven't been paying attention to the tech world, because this was quite a surprise to me...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Apple-overtakes-Microsoft-as-rb-2462784489.html?x=0

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Apple Inc shot past Microsoft Corp as the world's biggest tech company based on market value on Wednesday, the latest milestone in the resurgence of the maker of the iPhone, which nearly went out of business in the 1990s.

Apple's shares rose as much 2.8 percent on Nasdaq on Wednesday, as Microsoft shares floundered, briefly pushing its market value above $229 billion, ahead of its longtime rival.

Both stocks ended down after a late-day sell-off, but Apple emerged ahead with a market value of about $222 billion, compared with Microsoft's $219 billion, according to Reuters data.

Apple shares closed down 0.4 percent at $244.11 on Nasdaq, while Microsoft fell 4 percent to a seven-month low of $25.01.

Shares of Apple are worth more than 10 times what they were 10 years ago, as it has profited from revolutionizing consumer electronics with its stylish, easy to use products such as the iPod, iPhone and MacBook laptops.

The last time Apple had a higher market value than Microsoft was December 19, 1989, according to Thomson Reuters Datastream.

Microsoft, whose operating system runs on more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers, has not been able to match growth rates from its hey-day 1990s. Its stock is down 20 percent from 10 years ago.

Apple, which struggled for many years to get its products into the mainstream, resorted to a $150 million investment from the much larger Microsoft in 1997 in order to keep it afloat. At that time, Microsoft's market value was more than five times that of Apple.

Microsoft still leads Apple in sales. In the latest quarter, Microsoft reported $14.5 billion in revenue compared with Apple's $13.5 billion.

Cupertino, California-based Apple is now the second-largest company on the Standard & Poor's 500 index by market value, behind energy behemoth Exxon Mobil Corp.

[thurnundtaxis]

Apple's SO BIG folks literally are killing themselves working for them!

After a string of self-inflicted deaths at iPhone- and iPad-manufacturing Foxconn factories in China, employees are being asked to sign no-suicide pledges, according to a Taiwanese cable news report passed on by Australia's Sydney Morning Herald. The company is also surrounding its buildings with nets to catch jumpers.

I don't know about you, but if I was working 12 hours a day, six days a week, plugging circuit boards into Apple gadgets that sell for more than I might make in a month, and I looked out the window and saw nets being installed to keep co-workers from dashing their brains out on the streets below, I'd start to feel a little depressed. Top that off with an explicit corporate request to refrain from suicide and I'd be seriously questioning my career path.

And yet, according to a Foxconn spokesperson quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald, 8,000 job applicants apply to work at Foxconn's Chinese factories every day. I don't what's more distressing -- the rate of suicides among workers assembling the West's most prized objects of techno-fetishistic desire, or the fact that by Chinese standards, a Foxconn job is considered relatively desirable.

Foxconn's CEO, Terry Gou, has hustled from Taiwan to China to do some damage control and the Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is conducting its own investigation. As well it should: Apple's got a valuable brand to protect, and, even if the company just passed Microsoft in terms of market capitalization, Steve Jobs knows as well as anyone how easily reputations can be made and broken in an age where image is everything. Accusations of low wages can be brushed off without much effort. Nine deaths in six months? Not so easy.

More here:

http://www.salon.com/technology/apple/i ... ide_pledge

[smiths]

“Three years ago, just before the original iPhone shipped, here’s what Steve Ballmer said in an interview with USA Today’s David Lieberman:

‘There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60 percent or 70 percent or 80 percent of them, than I would to have 2 percent or 3 percent, which is what Apple might get.’

“Not only was he wrong about the iPhone, but he was even more wrong about Windows Mobile. Three years ago Ballmer was talking about 60, 70, 80 percent market share. This week, Gartner reported that Windows Mobile has dropped to 6.8 percent market share in worldwide smartphone sales, down dramatically from 10.2 percent a year ago.”

http://baselinescenario.com/2010/05/24/ ... e-ballmer/