Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple is Officially Worth More than Microsoft

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 142 posts

Re: Apple is Officially Worth More than Microsoft

#111

Post by werrett »

smackfu wrote: post #86
jacquesm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has adapted their logo over the years - and their website - to reflect the changing times, microsoft has kept their logo the same for a very long time. Now there is something to be said for keeping your logo the same, possibly forever. But the crowd that apple appeals to and that they intend to sell their gadgets and computers to loves shiny stuff, and apple is very good at making shiny stuff. It stands to reas…

Microsoft keeps a steady logo for the company, and updates the logo for their products. See Windows vs. Vista vs. Windows 7. Apple doesn't have logos for their products, so they update their company logo instead. Just different approaches.

I'd beg to differ that Apple doesn't have logos for some of their products. For example:

iTunes - http://www.google.com/images?q=itunes+logo Garageband - http://www.google.com/images?q=garageband+logo

But not all certainly - http://www.google.com/images?q=iPad

Re: Apple is Officially Worth More than Microsoft

#112

Post by rphlx »

jakarta wrote: post #109
eru wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Buybacks can work just as well if you are buying back at the right price. A lot of management teams are bad at capital allocation and buyback stock at 52 week highs - that is almost always incredibly stupid. The stock price for buybacks doesn't matter, if you only care about getting money back into investors' hands.

Incorrect. If your stock is overvalued, a buyback is an inefficient and destructive method for getting money back into shareholders hands. You would be better off giving a special dividend instead.

Debatable in the US, once the Bush dividend tax cuts expire next yr.

Re: Apple is Officially Worth More than Microsoft

#113

Post by metaprinter »

sh1mmer wrote: post #100
moron4hire wrote: post #8

Consider that Apple's P/E is 24.5 and Microsoft's P/E is 13.4. Basically, while Apple may be in demand right now, Microsoft is earning almost twice as much. Also, Microsoft pays a (albeit small) dividend, whereas Apple does not.

Is it just me that thinks it's insane that companies can permanently plan to not pay (or pay small) dividends? If market trading is solely based on the ability to resell stock at a higher price how is the market expected to select companies that deliver real value to the economy? Surely the ability of a company to consistently and stably deliver dividends to the stock holders would be the best measure of success, re-…

Warren Buffett says he will only pay a dividend when he feels his investors can make more money on the payout than he can by reinvesting it. It's hard to argue with that (and it also implies that in the future Berkshire Hathaway may indeed pay a dividend).

Re: Apple is Officially Worth More than Microsoft

#114

Post by elblanco »

dcurtis wrote: post #88
jedberg wrote: post #13

I think the more interesting news here is that Apple is now the second largest company in America (about $50 billion behind Exxon).

This is kind of pedantic, but I think the word valuable might be better here than largest . Apple is relatively small when compared to companies like Walmart, which has 2.1 million employees and almost 8x revenue.

value is also an almost meaningless term. How many times have we all seen the infomercials that sell some gadget at a $50 "value" but they'll sell it to you for only $19.95?

Re: Apple is Officially Worth More than Microsoft

#115

Post by elblanco »

10ren wrote: post #65
noarchy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that this was just a sound bite in 1997, but Jobs himself said it: "We have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose."

I was amazed when he said "we lost, they won" with no sense of rancor, nor of defeat of self. Very growthful and in-reality. Say what you will about Jobs, he's not dogmatic; he's far from an apple fanboy. He's doing what a recent article on disruption ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1375141 ) reminded me of: don't confront entrenched competition, it will "invoke a competitive response" and they'll win (or "neve…

> he's far from an apple fanboy.

I agree.

In order to make great things, and then to sustain that, I really truly believe you have to grow to dislike what you made before. It's the only way to take a critical eye one what you have done and learn from it.

Lots of people think Jobs is a tyrant inside of Apple (and I agree with that sentiment), but I think the motivation for that is that he simply wants to create something he doesn't hate right now. It might be bootup time, or interface delays, or screen pixel density etc. That kind of thinking, a critical review of your own likes/dislikes is healthy I think in order to grow.

Fanboyism, by definition, is not a process of critical thought.

Re: Apple is Officially Worth More than Microsoft

#116

Post by elblanco »

hugh3 wrote: post #75
herdrick wrote: post #43

So, when did Microsoft surpass Apple in market cap? 1992? 1988?

Good question. I couldn't find out since I can't get either google finance or yahoo finance to plot market cap, but I did get this: http://ycharts.com/search?q=MSFT%20vs%20AAPL&c=market_ca... It only goes back ten years but it at least shows that MSFT was vastly bigger than AAPL back in 1999.

Wow, '99-'00 was a rough year for MSFT.

Re: Apple is Officially Worth More than Microsoft

#117

Post by Nelson69 »

teyc wrote: post #81

The real question is whether Apple's growth is defensible? Talking about smart phones, Apple is a latecomer to the industry, and does not have a sufficiently strong patent pool to prevent competitors like Oracle, HP and MS from encroaching. Apple is the first to deliver to the mass market affordable tablet computing and touch computing devices. This will remain growth areas, and hence Apple's willingness to accept lo…

Will the competitors really reach feature parity? Really? I mean, to have feature parity with iPod, you need a top notch player, you need a very good music manager and then you need a one click store that has nearly everything. It's not the touch screen, it's not the iTunes app, it's not the store: it's all that stuff.

Does the competition take away or does it help them stand out more?

Re: Apple is Officially Worth More than Microsoft

#118

Post by sjs »

jackowayed wrote: post #104
KERMIT wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the value in Apple? Its ability to trick Americans into buying very expensive, yet very restrictive, products that most of the time they really don't need? That's actually a very harmful thing, from an economic perspective.

iPods and iPhones are competitively priced. Sure, the Macs are expensive, but the hardware is very high quality, and when you compare them to Thinkpads and Vaios--other high-end computers--it's pretty reasonable. I'm no Apple fanboy (as of now, the only money I've ever given Apple is 30% of app purchases I've made for my hand-me-down iPhone 2G), but in a couple of days, I'm buying a MacBook Pro because it's a high qu…

This is so true. I like me some Linux, but OS X has won me over. I thought the iPod was a fad for people with money to waste, until I got a Mac and discovered how much thought Apple puts into their products. Sure I had a HDD based MP3 player (Creative Nomad Jukebox), but it took 2-3 minutes to boot if you put 2GB of music on it and it was the same size as a discman. The UI was atrocious. I went back to an MP3 discman because the Jukebox sucked.

Most people don't compare Macs to equivalent systems, often because there is no comparable alternative. Even if you spec out a similar machine from other manufacturers you are almost guaranteed to be giving up something, whether that be battery life, a good case, or just the little touches that make you happy day to day like the battery life indicator or addictive multi-touch gestures.

Even the Vaio-Z, which is pretty slick and only 13", isn't on par with a MacBook Pro when it comes to the little touches. Yet it costs as much as a 15" MBP.

People who like to compare specs think they're getting a better deal but they rarely take into account actually using the thing for 8+ hours a day. The little things make a big difference when you use your computer that much.

Re: Apple is Officially Worth More than Microsoft

#119

Post by buster »

megablast wrote: post #80
buster wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computers? As in Desktop computers and laptops worldwide? I can't find current numbers but i wouldn't think that Apple has reached a global market share for desktops over 10%. Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system... Thats what i meant. Now tell me that in _this_ area Apple is exactly worth as much as MS. MS doesn't produce computers, so the comparison is not fair. But that's why…

Wow, you are quick. He said profit, not market share. For example, Apple maybe only sell 2-3% of the entire mobile handset market, but make more profit out of any Mobile company. They make more money than Nokia, who sell 100x as many phones.

for the hundreds time now. That's why i want to see the numbers. I am writing since the first comments now, that the most interesting information would be numbers. But we don't know them...

Re: Apple is Officially Worth More than Microsoft

#120

Post by nitrogen »

jackowayed wrote: post #104
KERMIT wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the value in Apple? Its ability to trick Americans into buying very expensive, yet very restrictive, products that most of the time they really don't need? That's actually a very harmful thing, from an economic perspective.

iPods and iPhones are competitively priced. Sure, the Macs are expensive, but the hardware is very high quality, and when you compare them to Thinkpads and Vaios--other high-end computers--it's pretty reasonable. I'm no Apple fanboy (as of now, the only money I've ever given Apple is 30% of app purchases I've made for my hand-me-down iPhone 2G), but in a couple of days, I'm buying a MacBook Pro because it's a high qu…

My experience with my first Mac has not been one of it "Just Working." I get periodic whole-screen graphics corruption (I took a photo of the screen with my digital camera I was so surprised), infinite loops when connecting to shared folders if I type the URI wrong, and other issues. Plus, its UI is a lot slower than the custom PC I paid the same price for. It mostly sits unused now.
Post reply on HN