Apple Dethrones Microsoft As World's Biggest Tech Company

SEATTLE — Apple has surpassed Microsoft as the largest technology company in the world by market capitalization.

Apple's move comes as the company's iPhone, and now its iPad tablet computer, have taken on more of the personal computing tasks once handled by computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system and other programs.

Market cap is the dollar value of a company's outstanding shares. On Wednesday, Apple Inc.'s shares slipped $1.11 to close at $244.11, making its market cap about $222 billion.

But Microsoft Corp.'s stock fell $1.06, or 4.1 percent, to close at $25.01, for market cap of about $219 billion.

The only U.S. business with a higher market value is Exxon Mobil Corp. The oil company's market cap is about $279 billion, based on Wednesday's closing price of $59.31.

(This version CORRECTS the spelling of Exxon Mobil)

Comments

[Seán O'Nilbud]

06:01 PM on 06/08/2010

Apple is like cats. I don't have a problem with cats, I don't have a problem with apple. It's the users, they have the same problems in life and fail in the same way. Frankly I get tired of trying to pretend they're normal people. We all know that owning a cat or owning apple products is a cry for help, so why pretend there's nothing wrong.

[Bienie]

05:56 AM on 06/03/2010

aaargh you Apple fanboys/girls are so annoying :S
Microsoft only remaining in business because of the Xbox? dont make me laugh :P
you people only buy Apple because of it's name, if you compare the prices with the quality your buying you would be shocked :O just because it looks ok it does not mean it's good ;) .

PS. the ipad really sucks, it does't even run flash, how sad is that XD

[SDindependent]

12:22 AM on 05/30/2010

Apple gets somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of the AT&T phone contracts they sell........ income from the tech products is secondary......... and they are not the #1 company in revenue.

[VADemVADem]

02:21 PM on 05/29/2010

I hate Apple bla bla bla I hate Apple Apple is the Devil Apple killed my grandchild and ate his bones and then pooped out his bones and then danced on his grave Apple killed my puppy dog I hate Apple bla bla bla the world was perfect until Apple came along and now it's uninhabitable I hate Apple bla bla bla Apple killed my kitty cat I hate Apple I was a perfect human then I bought an Apple iPod shuffle and now I just killed my neighbor because I hate Apple bla bla bla nothing is worse than Apple except maybe Apple I hate all the people who use Apple products I hate Apple bla bla bla.

[philp71]

03:14 PM on 05/30/2010

the only reason people hate apple is because they know their pc sucks and they are envious of our apple amazing operating system

[iLoveOldNY]

06:58 PM on 05/30/2010

You should wipe that brown ring from your nose. Envy is for guys like you.

[MisEducatedBlac]

11:30 AM on 05/28/2010

cot damn, its a new day! http://diaryofamiseducatedblackman.com/

[General Public]

02:25 AM on 05/28/2010

I completely despise both Apple and Microsoft for their anti-competitive business practices, closed systems, emphasis on marketing rather than quality, lack of REAL innovation, stealing the ideas of others constantly, putting out substandard products that need to be constantly updated with patches, removing backwards compatibility and support for their older products to force people to buy the newer ones, trying to control what programs users can and cannot install/run, lack of privacy or good security, failure to embrace open cross-platform standards, and general mediocrity caused by their lack of real competition and their corporate greed to maximize profit by charging high prices for inferior products. Both companies employ legions of incredibly smart and well-qualified people, but these people are mostly being used to benefit their employers, not consumers. Both companies have infringed on many patents owned by smaller companies that got crushed in their wake or bought up on the cheap to make the problems go away. I could care less about which of these malicious corporate behemoths is larger and does more to stifle innovation and creativity in the software industry. That's like picking between the devil you know and the other devil that you also know.

[JasonMcl]

05:53 PM on 05/28/2010

o < Head of Nail

|||
||-------====== < Your hammer of wisdom.
O

Right on the mark, every single sentence.

[Alejandro Penalosa C]

05:44 PM on 07/22/2010

Totally agreed!

Both stink!

[Euges]

01:38 AM on 05/28/2010

Microsoft pays a quarterly dividend of $0.13 per share.

Stock price is so high be cause it's trendy, if stock price was a real factor, all apple fanboy's would be bowing down before Google.

[MIKEinNYC]

10:53 PM on 05/27/2010

Gates may be a bit of a doofus but Jobs is E VIL.

[philp71]

02:44 PM on 05/30/2010

how because he makes products that work the first time, o wait bill gates has never made anything that works

[Seán O'Nilbud]

06:04 PM on 06/08/2010

So stupid

[Morgantheaxe]

05:28 PM on 05/27/2010

The sad part about this is actually listening to Steve "Baldy" Ballmer about the future of the tech market. Anyone actually listened to his Cloud software concept? You should he's betting the company on it. It's EXACTLY what IBM said the market would be right before it shrank in to oblivion. Anyone bought anything from IBM in two decades? Yeh you won't be buying anything from Microsoft in the next two either. Really you should look up his "Cloud" software concept. While ev1 else is giving you new devices you can personalize with apps Microsoft's Cloud wants to give you one big giant homogenous high priced perverted version of a mainframe. Good luck with that Baldy.

[iLoveOldNY]

05:35 PM on 05/27/2010

Cloud would destroy Apple and all of their craptastic proprietary everything.

[Dark Horse]

01:44 PM on 05/28/2010

Dear Genius,

Cloud isn't going to destroy anything, your "brilliant postulation" and "persuasively nuanced" argument not withstanding. Cloud for basic internet services is a winner.

Cloud for business productivity is a loser; it opens every company who uses it to violations of their privacy and instantly neutralizes their proprietary and competitive advantages.

Why? No company who offers cloud business productivity applications is going to miss the opportunity to sell its customers' business information. It's the next huge privacy violation scandal you'll read about. They reason it's okay to sell it through "brokers" who'll carry the risk. You see? Plausible deniability. They just want the cash -and they want to protect themselves. Do you get it?

Cloud is not going to destroy anything, except itself -and maybe a few small businesses along the way.

Software development companies are greedy beyond reason. Remember user manuals? Free Technical support? Installation media? It's pathetic that these companies continue to push for more profit; they've already exceeded the point where they offer value-add; they actually pass along their cost of doing business to their customers. Remember that next time you print a 250 page user manual or pay $25.-$250 per incident for technical support, or when a company refuses to give you a refreshed download link and/or refuses to allow you to buy media for software you purchased online.

These people are becoming self-interested to the point of being self-destruction. No serious business who understands cloud, will use cloud.

[Morgantheaxe]

06:14 PM on 05/30/2010

Clouds not going to touch Apple because I don't believe apple is going to get close to that dog of a concept. Cloud however IS going to destroy Microsoft. It's an old dog of a concept with a new haircut(yeh that was a crack at big dummys bald head). Is anyone willing to go all in with "Cloud" given Microsofts absolutely crap support of their existing products? Do you really wanna be tied to them that closely? Im sure Vijay in bombay will get your business straightened right out. Thats if you ever get to talk to Vijay. Remember, you have to send about 50 emails back and forth to get anyone on the phone at Microsoft. If you ever do.

[djluc]

07:28 PM on 05/27/2010

Actually cloud computing or SaaS (software as a service) is growing pretty popular with companies AND consumers. Think salesforce.com, gmail, online maps, google apps, etc. Buying software off the shelf will be a thing of the past in the next several years. With mobile devices you now have the ability to access your data from anywhere. Plus you don't have to worry about back ups anymore. I've been in the business a long time first as a sys admin, hen a consultant, now as an owner of an IT services company. It's clearly the way the industry is headed.

[philp71]

03:19 PM on 05/30/2010

yes and suggesting apple is to stupid to follow well is just plain stupid

[Morgantheaxe]

05:58 PM on 05/30/2010

Sure np....hold all my marbles for me. Nah nvm...Ill hold my own marbles thank you.

[wilray]

04:11 PM on 05/27/2010

Lets same Apple actually became the dominant player. Let's say they actually had the majority market share. Wouldn't they have to change their motto to "Think the same." Obviously, they couldn't call themselves mavericks.

[iLoveOldNY]

04:00 PM on 05/27/2010

Apple looks just like Dell looked when Michael Dell was being obnoxious on CNBC interviews regarding his "supreme reign" of the pc hardware market.

iPods - made obsolete by smart phones
iPhones - made obsolete by HTC
iPad - made obsolete (purposely by Apple themselves) by HP Slate. That didn't take long!
MP3 Sales - made obsolete by DRM
iMac - made obsolete by outrageous prices (you can build a pc that's twice as powerful for half as much with a real OS)
Video - Apple says you can't access the other half of the web that uses Flash

They had good ideas and they made a bunch of money selling people overpriced products with great product design and even better marketing. Hardware has a short shelf life though, and everything Apple does is done better by other companies now, except for maybe MP3's which can be (and probably will be) done by everyone.

[Morgantheaxe]

05:21 PM on 05/27/2010

Well ya knew someone was gonna flame ya for this....so here goes. Ipods - obsolete by smart phones.......strap a smart phone on and go for a jog...duhhhhh. Iphones - made obsolete by HTC....that Taiwanese 4g trash hasn't even hit the market yet and ev1 is calling it the Iphone "killer"......wait for the bugs and lousy support from HTC....duhhhhhh. Ipad - made obsolete by hp slate......go pick up an Ipad at an apple store and play with it for a while. You will never compare it to a HP Slate again....duhhhhhhh!!! Ok Im done not even gonna hit the rest of the list.

[iLoveOldNY]

05:32 PM on 05/27/2010

My God, you're a poet.

[outofmyfreakinmind]

03:47 AM on 05/28/2010

looks like apple invents and copycats wins, except for the flash video part

im not a apple fan

[gennarogama]

01:29 PM on 05/27/2010

...and if 90% of what you do is wordprocessing, surfing the net and listening to MP3/watching videos, PC or Mac: la memme merde

[gennarogama]

01:27 PM on 05/27/2010

truth is: this is not news, it is trivia info. irrelevant to debate market cap of companies. it has nothing to do which company is better. besides, at lest I don't own enough shares of either to retain any degree of control so, at the end of the day (or trading day) anything I do is unnaffected by this...

[Infostream]

01:04 PM on 05/27/2010

Apple has become the greatest hype machine since the Catholic Church in the Dark Ages. The approach is similar, make people believe your way is the only way, your Proprietary music store and player are the only ones that work, and getting free Flash content on the web is not "approved" by your higher power Steve Jobs, you must buy apps that mostly are just specialized searches. I see them advertising The iPad as having 200,000 apps - at $1 each, that's a $200,000 machine that does 1/10th the functions of a laptop - now that is some brilliant marketing to the insecure elitist who will pay and pay to feel superior.

[The Third Degree]

02:09 PM on 05/27/2010

L. Ron Jobs and his cult of Appletology.

[philp71]

03:07 PM on 05/30/2010

i would rather be a fan of apple which makes products that are innovative and work, than idolize a company that copies and makes products that don't work on purpose. the only reason windows sucks is because they know they can sell you the next broken operating system. they promise the problems will be fixed just buy windows me , now buy windows vista, now buy windows 7, the mac os X hasn't been updated that much in comparison because it works.

[bungerman]

12:48 PM on 05/27/2010

how much does apple pay huffington post for each article? I see quite a few on this website...

[philp71]

03:08 PM on 05/30/2010

as much as microsoft pays you for yours