IBM is now more valuable than Microsoft (but still way behind Apple)
For the first time in 15 years, IBM has a higher market value than Microsoft., closing at $214 billion yesterday compared to Microsoft’s $213.2 billion close.
It marks a symbolic victory for a company that has been under investor scrutiny for 6 years ever since abandoning their roots of hardware when they sold their PC business 6-years ago to put full effort on corporate software and solutions. It still trails Apple, the world’s largest tech company, by a large margin with Apple closing at $362.1 billion yesterday.
“IBM went beyond technology,” said Ted Schadler, an analyst with Forrester Research Inc, told Bloomberg today. “They were early to recognize that computing was moving way beyond these boxes on our desks.”
Microsoft investors shouldn’t fret the 8.8% drop in 2011, according to Microsoft. Their upcoming entry into the tablet market with Windows 8 is being viewed as a potential jolt to their sagging share values.
International Business Machines Inc. has demonstrated a consistent rise since 2008, while Microsoft’s road has been more of a roller coaster.
Microsoft, as a platform-less software parts supplier, rode their way to success on IBM’s platform to begin with.
If it wasn’t for the comedy of errors that meant that IBM who needed an
OS (for the IBM PC) and Seattle Computer Products (Tim Patterson), who
wrote QDOS (later re-branded as MS-DOS), were blissfully unaware of
their complementary products, then Microsoft would have gone the way of
the basic interpreter which is about all else they were known for.
Despite Microsoft providing the basic interpreter for the world’s
highest ever selling single brand of personal computer, the Commodore
64, they couldn’t even get their brand mentioned on it.
People wonder why sub-platforms like Flash and .Net often aren’t allowed
on Apple’s device who provide both the hardware and software platform.
The answer is quite simple. Those who lived through the pioneering era
of personal computing saw how a mere software parts can hijack a
platform using parts, even those acquired from third parties, to poach
control.
BTW, this was written using my nVidia Laptop sold by Dell. If we can
refer to computers by the name of their parts as is often done for a
“Window’s PC”, then calling it a nVidia PC is just as valid.
Yeh, because we all know we can trust the stock market…