Apple Passes Microsoft to Become Second-Largest U.S. Company by Market Capitalization

[madmax_2069]

How can people see this as negative, unless they are MS fanboys voting.

 

[deconstruct60]

Then there are the areas the companies don't compete:
Microsoft has beaten Apple in operating system licences, because Apple doesn't compete.

They do compete. Apple just isn't trying to win, just treadwater and milk the cash cow. Just because Apple sells the OS bundled with a restricted set of hardware doesn't mean they are not in competition. If profits from OS licenses dried up tomorrow, Apple's stock price would plummet.

Apple has beaten Microsoft in computer sales, because Microsoft doesn't compete.

A fraction of what you are counting as "computer sales" is actually OS sales; exactly the same mechanism Microsoft makes the vast bulk of their OS profits. OS license revenues come in through side effect of system sales; not direct license purchases. 8-20% of every "computer" sale you point to is an bundled OS sale.

 

[cvaldes]

Strickly from an investor's point of view, MS has been MUCH better to there investors than Apple. If you invested the same amount of money in Apple and Microsoft in 1986, your MS shares would be worth FAR more than Apple shares.

That's strictly the point of view from a fire-and-forget investor, not one who periodically reevaluates the potential upside of his/her holdings.

So as an investment, MS did really well for the investors. But Apple is showing a very good future....

Five years ago, some people thought then as you do now ("Apple is showing a very good future...") and moved some money out of MSFT and into AAPL.

MSFT had an long run of superb performance (the Gates years) followed by mediocre (the Ballmer years). Over the past five years, MSFT has basically tracked the S&P 500 whereas AAPL is +450%.

Basically, you're way late to the party.

Steve Ballmer has no vision. He was a great hatchet man for Gates, but MSFT has suffered under Ballmer's reins. Microsoft needs new leadership.

 

[mcmlxix]

It is almost as much that Microsoft is engaged in too many areas then it is that they are not involved in too few. The bigger problem for Microsoft is that they are looking for a "swing for the fences (hit a ball out of park)" kind of result. Microsoft has their fingers in everything that looks like it might have potential be high volume.

I agree. It's better to do a few things well, than many things poorly.

MS would be better off to scale back to their core competencies, which is largely enterprise, and then become not only the biggest there, but the best. This will require a huge retooling of their paradigm. Also for fully integrated enterprise solutions, they need to make Win Mobile something other than a joke, make their browesers fully standards compliant, and their OS, and productivity apps leaner and more user friendly.

Leave media to Apple and search to Google.

 

[Jaro65]

Impressive; to be sure. Couldn't have been close to done without the iDevices, though.

Indeed. And if Apple is moving us with their iPad into a new age of computing (which I believe they are), I don't see the trending to change any time soon.

 

[mccldwll]

This is a very glaring indicator that it's time to sell your shares and not initiate new positions in AAPL.

It's not that they can't have sustained growth, but market pricing is a quirky thing. It almost never reflects the true value of a company. As a shrewd investor, your job is to get in when everyone is underpricing the company relative to its intrinsic value, and get out when everyone's overvaluing it... and be happy, move on to the next opportunity and not look back worrying about if you sold it on a Tuesday or a Thursday could you have eked out a few more dollars per share.

Price fluctuations for Apple are uncharacteristically volatile for a company of this size. That means a ton of speculation is going on, and more speculation is like molecules being heated up in a balloon. It inflates. So too is market price for AAPL heavily inflated by speculation, and that puts the investor at tremendous risk of loss.

The belief that a stock going up will keep going up is based on a very myopic view of a tiny fraction of market activity, and a lot of technical analysis hooey/voodoo. Institutions that engage in large scale transactions are still keenly aware of the company's actual net assets and cash generating capacity... but they do little to advise you of the perils because they play both sides of the transaction as market makers providing liquidity, exploiting inefficiencies in the market due to information gaps... of which they are always on the winning side.

Apple as a company will continue to do well, but whether or not they'll keep trading at a price that's ten times what their net assets and future cash flows (discounted to net present value)... that's playing with fire, blindfolded.

Be shrewd and find the next AAPL... instead of riding the same boat everyone else is on only to be left holding the bag when the insiders drop out.

Some truths, and a lot of fear. Aapl is trading at a ttm PE around 20, and a forward PE closer to 15. It's also in a very strong strategic position as the wireless Internet is exploding. If you're afraid of your own shadow, by all means stay away. Otherwise, DYODD.

 

[ipadrobot]

In other news, P/E ratios are also meaningless. They only tell you what other suckers have paid for a company... whether or not you should pay as much is a different question that the P/E ratio (price to earnings; apples and oranges) cannot measure.

Absolutely agree. PE ratio is pretty useless.

Actually DCF is a better and more accurate way to calculate the value of a company. Private equity firms use the DCF model extensively. (not perfect, but better than just looking at PE ratios)

 

[deconstruct60]

How can people see this as negative, unless they are MS fanboys voting.

They may question how Apple is making its money. Back when gas was $4.00/gallon lots of folks were not cheering Exxon being $100 billion higher than where Apple is now either.

They may also mark it negative because the stock is overpriced from their perspective. Their perception could be that there is too much irrational "future earnings" is factored into the current price.

There are several reasons that don't involve Microsoft.

 

[mcmlxix]

How can people see this as negative, unless they are MS fanboys voting.

Bots also click everything.

 

[diddl14]

Wolfram|Alpha is a wonderful tool.

The query (AAPL market cap) / (MSFT market cap) produces an accurate-as-of-yesterday number (last night, Apple was at 97.66% Microsoft,) plus a historic graph going back to 1986.

Oops, do I see a small win in terms of revenue for MS:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=AAPL+vs+MSFT+revenue

And what about profit:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=AAPL+vs+MSFT+profit

Looks like the the bubble called 'market-cap' doesn't tell the whole story...

But anyway, doesn't take away the fact that Apple has beaten MS now for a long time in both customer and shareholder value
(+ the revenue and profit trends also speak for )

 

[Black Macbook]

How can people see this as negative, unless they are MS fanboys voting.

Well, there are certain people and whiny, ridiculous, mental midgets who believe that Apple is the new big brother (closed app store etc.), so I would imagine that anybody who holds that twisted point of view would vote negative.

Also, this is the internet, and there are certain morons who would vote negative, regardless of what the topic was.

If Apple came out with a 2 x hexacore machine (12 cores) Mac Pro next month, and sold it for $999.99, there would be people who would be complaining, whining and giving negative ratings.

 

[chugg]

Steve Ballmer has no vision. He was a great hatchet man for Gates, but MSFT has suffered under Ballmer's reins. Microsoft needs new leadership.

Completely agree. Gates was a technology pioneer (as much as people here hate to admit). Ballmer is a business man. While a CEO like Ballmer might work at most other companies, Microsoft needs a man with a vision and a man who genuinely cares for what he is doing - more than just the bottom line.

 

[chugg]

Well, there are certain people and whiny, ridiculous, mental midgets who believe that Apple is the new big brother (closed app store etc.), so I would imagine that anybody who holds that twisted point of view would vote negative.

Also, this is the internet, and there are certain morons who would vote negative, regardless of what the topic was.

If Apple came out with a 2 x hexacore machine (12 cores) Mac Pro next month, and sold it for $999.99, there would be people who would be complaining, whining and giving negative ratings.

Most ironic post of this thread.

 

[HLdan]

You guys, we need to get rid of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose.

It's just feels better this way. :-D

Why not? That's been Microsoft's motto since day one. One can only sit back and allow it but for so long. Have you not checked out how amazing Office 2008 for Mac is? Oh wait, it's not, but the Windows version is amazing and includes VB for the same price as the Mac version. Have you checked out One Note for Mac, oh wait, that's only on Windows. How about MS Access, Publisher or Visio? They're not on Mac either but the suite cost the same on Mac and Windows. Let's not talk about how awesome Messenger is on Mac.

 

[thecartoonguy]

Holy mother of God - YAYYYY ! I'm so happy !

+1

 

[chim9999]

love it

 

[foobarbaz]

Correction: MSFT just passed AAPL. Backwards.

 

[andiwm2003]

"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders," Michael Dell said before a crowd of several thousand IT executives.

ok, I just had to post it (again). And yes I know he said that in 1997. But it's still funny and it shows that a team with the right vision, hard work and some luck can create something amazing even starting from a desperate situation.

congrats apple and "don't be evil"

 

[BornAgainMac]

For those who are soooo happy. WHY!?!?!? The company that makes your favorite electronic devices is now the 2nd largest company by market cap. Why does this make you happy??? I don't get it.

Two Things:
1) People that used Windows or general PCs treated Mac users like second class citizens. Saying how Apple was going out of business and you would have to throw away your investment in time and resources with Apple products and relearn everything over again. Going to Windows would be a step backward. People will never forget that.

2) It is nice to see an underdog company or person achieve something close difficult or impossible. Sort of like watching a Rocky movie or watching the Rebels destroy the powerful Death Star for the first time on the big screen, or a single Federation Starship defeating the Borg. It is purely an entertainment value.

 

[deconstruct60]

If Apple came out with a 2 x hexacore machine (12 cores) Mac Pro next month, and sold it for $999.99, there would be people who would be complaining, whining and giving negative ratings.

Yes. in part because there are a significant number of folks here who just want to hype Apple stock (and profits). They care more about putting money in their own pocket than they do about the users of the machines getting more optimal price/performance.

A common delusion present in this forum is that this forum is only for dispensing and consuming Apple kool-aid. That is not the only reason folks come here. Some come for information to either make future purchasing decisions on systems/software or perhaps just on the stock (regarless of personal usage).

There is a wide range of perspectives that go beyond playing the dozens on Windows vs. Mac OS .

 

[DougB541]

I think it is good to work at where both companies compete and here there has been winners and losers:
I think Apple has beat them in Media Players, Phones and Retail.
Microsoft continues to trounce Apple in desktop productivity software sales and desktop web browser installed base.

Then there are the areas the companies don't compete:
Microsoft has beaten Apple in operating system licences, because Apple doesn't compete.
Microsoft has beaten Apple games consoles, because Apple doesn't compete.

BUT:
Apple has beaten Microsoft in computer sales, because Microsoft doesn't compete.

Well said.

 

[andiwm2003]

For those who are soooo happy. WHY!?!?!? The company that makes your favorite electronic devices is now the 2nd largest company by market cap. Why does this make you happy??? I don't get it.

Because I bought Apple stock 10 years ago for something like $9 per share (before stock split).

 

[TennisandMusic]

So who's got the last laugh now, Winblows droids? Have you got enough crow? I have been saying this for a LONG time, that Apple would surpass MS SOONER than later!

So now is the perfect occasion for all MS fanboys to stop infesting this forum and spreading their FUD.

MS IS DEAD. AND SO IS GOOGLE.

Sent from my wonderful iPad!

P.s.: Tks for the news, Apple; today is my B-day..!

Congratulations on making it to 12.

 

[jeznav]

Steve Ballmer must be throwing hundreds of chairs by now.

 

[Shanpdx]

Now we know where Combo Drive to super drive upgrade $$$ went!