[satan]

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OK, let's end the political diatribes right here before they get out of hand. There are lots of other sandboxes on the Web you can play in if you want to start lobbing grenades at each other's party affiliations.

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To be fair, you should either remove his post or allow one rebuttal. I think you should just remove it, frankly.

[megatrick]

Hey guys, Apple's market cap has now exceeded IBM. Can you believe it??!

[whitedog]

According to Yahoo Finance:
Apple, Inc. Market Cap is 162.41B taken at about 12:08 PM PST - See: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AAPL%2C

AND

IBM, Inc. Market Cap is 157.87B taken at about 12:10 PM PST - See: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=IBM
AND
Microsoft, Inc. Market Cap is 289.61B taken at about 12:12 PM PST - See: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=MSFT%2C

AND

Google, Inc. Market Cap is 211.01B taken at about 12:14 PM PST - See: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=GOOG
How soon before Apple, Inc. eclipses the current market share shown above for Google, Inc. and Microsoft, Inc.? I calculate at $243 and $334 per share respectively. Wow has Steve helped add alot of valuation to Apple, Inc. for the shareholders.

That assumes Google will stop growing, which is improbable. Apple is unlikely to catch Google before Google catches Microsoft. And Apple will have to sell a heck of a lot more computers and such before it catches either one. I'm not saying it won't happen, some day, but projecting the future based on current performance in the stock market is highly risky and never more so than in today's volatile economic climate. And, realistically, how long will it be before people start cashing in their Apple stock to secure their profits, thus causing the value to drop significantly? That's likely to happen sooner rather than later. It won't stop the growth in the value of Apple stock, but a glance at any market graph shows what a roller-coaster the market really is. The future is nothing if not insecure.
On the face of it what is most remarkable about Apple's financials is that it is over half the size of Microsoft with less than 10% market share in computer sales. Of course, Microsoft doesn't sell computer hardware and Apple now has some very profitable side businesses with the iPod and the iPhone. And, a fact that usually gets overlooked, the Apple Stores now provide Apple with substantial income from the sale of third-party Apple related products. Apple gets a piece of everything sold off the shelves in those stores.
What is true is what Steve Jobs said some months ago - Microsoft doesn't have to do badly for Apple to do well. It's not an either-or proposition.

[gfair]

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Best desktop sales in more than three years. It's those iMacs.

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The most telling figure is the portable sales, though. Apple's laptop sales have increased by an order of magnitude since Jobs' return, and they now represent well over half the company's unit sales. That is simply incredible.

[jdb8167]

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If that's true, then it basically validates my assumption that Apple didn't need carrier support. If 20% of customers are going to purchase a product and unlock it, despite unprecedented efforts to keep it locked, it says that people are buying the iPhone because of Apple, and not because of AT&T.

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[/indent] Much of what makes the iPhone successful is because of cooperation between Apple and AT&T. You know how you can take an iPhone home from an Apple store, plug it into a dock and have it activated in 5 minutes without dealing with AT&T? That isn't possible without the cooperation of the carrier. Neither is visual voice mail though that could possibly be worked around either by Apple providing the service or getting it from a third-party. You know that $20/month unlimited data plan? That is $20/month less than AT&Ts normal rate for a smart phone. The low rate is because of cooperation.
What does Apple gain if they sold the phone unlocked? Neither Verizon nor Sprint will allow a phone on their network without approval. Verizon already said no. Sprint might have said yes but that wouldn't be unlocked either. That leaves T-Mobile among the top 4 US mobile phone carriers. Is losing billions in subscription revenue worth it for Apple just to allow people to choose between AT&T and T-Mobile?
Apple made a business decision that will maximize revenue and provide reasonably good service for their customers. The state of the US mobile phone market makes it pretty difficult to change things for the better. Apple seems to be working toward changing the current US mobile phone business model. Only time will tell if it works and is a good thing but in a stagnant market, anything is better than the status quo.

[doh123]

i think the most telling is about Apples Desktop line. Back when they stopped making lower end towers, the desktops sales majorly dropped and still haven't gotten back to where they once were. Guess they had decent amount of sales when they had a lower cost tower machine rather than just a high end workstation and all-in-ones, and the mini.

[tallscot]

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You forgot to mention:
Online Services Business -$239,000,000
Entertainment and Devices Division -$1,199,000,000
Corporate-Level Activity -$1,439,000,000
Yeah, Microsoft still does well with their office suite and operating system monopolies, don't they? Other than that, they are sucking total balls. Microsoft is unable to compete outside of their monopoly they forged 12 years ago. Everything else is losing money.
13% increase revenue last quarter year-over-year for Microsoft. 29% increase for Apple.
This chart tells it all. The orange line at the bottom is Microsoft's stock. The blue one is Apple's.

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Well I guess that we could compare every parameter on the 10Q of both Apple, Inc. and Microsoft, Inc. I was only looking at gross revenues and not at the details behind the numbers. In terms of stock price obviously Apple, Inc. beats Microsoft, Inc. handily of late.
In terms of individual strategies like the Zune, etc. they are nowhere near Apple, Inc. Still Microsoft reported net income of $14,065 (in millions) and Apple, Inc. reported net income of $3,496 (in millions) for their current fiscal years. See: http://www.microsoft...secfilings.aspx (8-3-2007 10-K annual report in the list) and http://images.apple.com/pr/pdf/q407finstatements.pdf . Therefore even with Microsoft, Inc. bleeding all of that money in the various divisions you mentioned their net income is slightly over 4 times that of Apple, Inc.
Personally I think that Apple, Inc. is on the road to even further growth while continuing to be able to demand very impressive gross margins (probably the best in both the computer and consumer electronics industry segments). Look for the stock price over $250/share

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Yes, we know Microsoft makes billions in profit. That's nothing new. However, going at this from a "what does the Windows zealot have now?" line of debate, it's very weak to say Microsoft makes more money. That would be impressive if Microsoft made more money from innovative products and services they have been creating. The opposite is true. Microsoft still makes their money from the office suite and OS that they forged into monopolies over a decade ago using illegal business practices. Both products are crap and nobody even debates this now.
All of their other products and services are failures. So if I were a Microsoft zealot, I wouldn't go at it from that angle. Office and Windows aren't something I'd be proud of and there's nothing else to point to.
And it's even more embarrassing that Microsoft can't pull out a gem once and a while considering their massive unfair advantage they have by tying their products to the monopoly OS. Of course, the other unfair advantage they have is they can keep pouring billions into a loser product because it's subsidized by the monopolies. They still can't succeed, even with that. They are a mess.

[xanthus1]

Apple managed, after many years, to battle back from 2-3% up to 6%+ marketshare. They did this, very largely, by the quality of their product, style, and innovation.
Hard to have anything but admiration for the company at this point.
-George

[nmpike]

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And it's even more embarrassing that Microsoft can't pull out a gem once and a while considering their massive unfair advantage they have by tying their products to the monopoly OS. Of course, the other unfair advantage they have is they can keep pouring billions into a loser product because it's subsidized by the monopolies. They still can't succeed, even with that. They are a mess.

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[/indent]
I hate Microsoft more than the next guy trust me... but I do think they did a great job on the 360. I love mine... although I dont think it counts because they are losing money on it.... so in that respect I am glad MS has money to throw around or the 360 may not be here.
i also love my Wii, but its online experience is no where near that of the 360.