Apple Now World's Largest Tech Company

3251 Views 29 Replies 14 Participants Last post by Dr.Dave, May 28, 2010

99semaj

Discussion Starter · May 26, 2010

Apple's market capitalization hit $222 billion on Wednesday, leaving it ahead of rival Microsoft as the largest technology company in the world when the closing bell rang on Wall Street.

The dethroning of Microsoft now makes Apple -- for now -- the second largest American company, behind only Exxon-Mobil. Apple has a ways to go to catch the oil giant, which has a market capitalization of nearly $280 billion

While market cap is but a single metric, it's an interesting factoid all the same...

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Francois Caron

· #21 · May 27, 2010

I stand corrected.

Jobs, you owe Woz some cash. Pay up!

The comparison between Henry Ford and Bill Gates is pretty good. A personal computer with its complexity can be a bit overwhelming in the hands of the ordinary person, just like the Model T was at the time before all cars adopted today's greatly simplified but entirely functional control layout. The following video starting at 5:08 will better explain what I mean.

In a way, Steve Jobs is creating the standard set of SIMPLE controls that had been missing from all computers since the very beginning, just like the simple controls Cadillac had introduced in their cars, and which were adopted by other manufacturers.

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Dr.Dave

· #22 · May 28, 2010

hkaye said:
Not that it really matters but the revenue/ net income numbers for AAPL posted in this thread are incorrect.

I just did a copy and paste from marketwatch.com. The numbers are from the last fiscal year end. (Sep/09 for Apple)

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hkaye

· #23 · May 28, 2010

As I said, not that it really matters, but if you can read the accounting blah blah they filed in Q1 of 2010 they have a new 'magical' accounting principles. They also have revised the income statements for the past years to reflect these new accounting principles. I have no idea how this all works, but apparently it significantly changes the numbers (as in billions of dollars in changes) they report for revenue/net income.

http://www.apple.com/investor/

You can see the difference the new accounting makes by looking at the quarterly reports on market watch

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/aapl/financials/income/quarter

The numbers for net income almost double. It's not because they sold that much more, but just the way the accounting is now done. It's not that much of a leap to speculate next years annual numbers will almost match microsofts revenue/ net income

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hkaye

· #24 · May 28, 2010

The first cars were very much like the first computers!

Thanks for the video, that was a fun watch

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hkaye

· #25 · May 28, 2010

I found a good article explaining (well it explains it a lot better than the blah blah in Apple's Q1 report for me

) the accounting changes Apple made and why they had to declare their revenue using subscription accounting.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...s_iphone_subscription_accounting_changes.html

Interesting read. An odd occurrence where a new law was supposed to prevent companies like Enron over inflating their revenue worked in reverse for Apple where they had to 'under report' their revenue.

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PokerChip

· #26 · May 28, 2010

The iPod saved Apple.

I beg to differ.

It's ultimately a computer, the iMac, which saved Apple. The iPod was not a "hot" gadget until its second or third generation. I owned a first gen 5 GB white iPod in 2002 and for the better part of one year, nobody even knew what it was, nor could they relate to why one would need such a product.

By the time the iPod became very popular around 2004, there would have been little or nothing left of Apple had they not been able to cash in on the colourful all-in-one desktop, which sold like hotcakes in schools and inspired the MacBook, Apple's first budget laptop.

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Tikker

· #27 · May 28, 2010

what saved Apple was the marketing campaign that convinced everyone that paying a premium for a device made them somehow cool, hip, and better than everyone else

they magically found that button that brought out the inner elitist in everyone

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PokerChip

· #28 · May 28, 2010

Macs have always been more expensive than PCs. In fact, during Apple's dark ages (the 90s), the argument that price was the barrier to mass adoption lead to the appearance of Mac clones.

When Steve Jobs returned to the company in 1997, killing the licenses with clone makers was the first thing he did. Then he went to work on Mac OS 8 and the iMac, and people started to take notice again, just like they had in the mid 80s. For about 10 years, Apple had lost its edge. There were cheaper alternatives to their OS and their hardware, and people voted with their wallets.

I felt very different (no better, different) from anyone else around me when I was working on my Mac 15 years ago. I was using it because it just worked. Fifteen years later, I don't feel so different anymore (everybody is jumping on the bandwagon). But I still use Apple technology for the same reason: it works and makes me more productive.

With the iMac and OS 8, Apple regained its edge. Other products such as the iPod, the iPhone, Mac OS 9 and especially X, as well as good marketing and industrial design have allowed Apple to claw its way back from near death.

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hkaye

· #29 · May 28, 2010

what saved Apple was the marketing campaign that convinced everyone that paying a premium for a device made them somehow cool, hip, and better than everyone else

My first Mac was the 'lamp shade' 800Mhz G4. I bought it because it looked cool. And well, I wanted to be cool and have a cool computer.

I pulled it out of the box, plugged it in and was surfing the net in less than 5 minutes. Easiest computer to get on my wifi network ever.

Just starting using the Mac more and more over my other Windows/Linux computers until I was using it 100% of time. I got carried away and started buying cinema displays, ipods, PowerBooks, nothing could stop me from pressing that damn 'Buy it Now' button on apple's website.

So in essence, what you say is partly true, except I always thought I was better than everyone else before I bought my first iMac

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Dr.Dave

· #30 · May 28, 2010

hkaye said:
The numbers for net income almost double. It's not because they sold that much more, but just the way the accounting is now done. It's not that much of a leap to speculate next years annual numbers will almost match microsofts revenue/ net income

You're right. I was vaguely aware of the accounting changes but I had no idea how significant they were. Now I AM impressed.

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