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May
27
I Am Not A Number (well, maybe…)
Filed Under Tech News
Number 6: Where am I?
Number 2: In the Village.
Number 6: What do you want?
Number 2: We want information.
Number 6: Whose side are you on?
Number 2: That would be telling. We want information… information… information.
Number 6: You won’t get it.
Number 2: By hook or by crook, we will.
Number 6: Who are you?
Number 2: The new Number 2.
Number 6: Who is Number 1?
Number 2: You are Number 6.
Number 6: I am not a number, I am a free man.
From the 1967s TV Show, The Prisoner – Opening Sequence
If Apple were a number it would be number 2 – in terms of Market Capitalization (a measurement of size of a business enterprise (corporation) equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding of a public company). Yes folks, Apple today hit a milestone. It surpassed Microsoft and is second only to Exxon in terms of it’s net worth in the economic village. From the Globe And Mail (article sent to me by one of my wonderful clients – thanks Julian):
The financial scorecard – a $222.1-billion (U.S.) market value for Apple versus $219.2-billion for Microsoft – marks a symbolic changing of the guard. Only one company is worth more: Exxon.
And it parallels a remarkable reversal of fortunes for the two U.S. technology titans – one who wooed consumers, the other who chased Big Business.
The consumer won. Apple, which once relied on one-hit wonder computers, has transformed itself into a consumer electronics giant by cleverly linking its trendy devices – including the iPod, iPhone and its latest iPad – to lucrative sales of songs, books, photos and movies.
Microsoft, meanwhile, has become a stagnating giant, content to be a technology follower, too reliant on pushing its Windows operating system on business customers.
Holy Smokes! And what is amazing is that in 1997 it was Microsoft helping the almost bankrupt Apple to stay afloat (and avoid more anti-trust accusations) when it agreed to continue to support Microsoft Office for Mac and invested $190 Million in stock options (methinks it made more on that deal than through any innovation since). At the time, those of us die-hard Apple watchers were a sad lot indeed – being bailed out by the Man from Redmond – seeing Big Bill Gates on the screen at the MacWorld Keynote 1997 hovering over the huddled masses like the 1984 commercial that gave birth to the Mac itself. Ahh, how the village scene has changed…Is Microsoft on it’s way to becoming the new number 6? As the FCC in the US investigates the Apple’s sway in the Music business is it becoming the new villain?
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I think you meant to say “The man from Redmond”, not “The man from Richond.”
You are so right – and it has been corrected – thanks : )