Apple Overtakes MS As Leading High-Tech Cap Company
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“It is the single most important turnaround that I have seen in Silicon Valley,” said Jim Breyer, a venture capitalist who has invested in some of the most successful technology companies.
That was the reaction yesterday when Apple closed trading on Wednesday ahead of arch-rival Micro-Soft for the first time ever.
This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in business history, as Apple had been given up for dead only a decade earlier.
“It is the single most important turnaround that I have seen in Silicon Valley,” said Jim Breyer, a venture capitalist who has invested in some of the most successful technology companies.
That was the reaction yesterday when Apple closed trading on Wednesday ahead of arch-rival Micro-Soft for the first time ever.
This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in business history, as Apple had been given up for dead only a decade earlier.
But the rapidly rising value attached to Apple by investors also heralds a cultural shift:
Consumer tastes have overtaken the needs of business as the leading force shaping technology, at least according to this short piece in the New York Times.
Microsoft, with its Windows and Office software franchises, has dominated the relationship most people had with their computers for almost two decades and that was reflected in its stock market capitalization.
But the click-clack of the keyboard has ceded ground to the swoosh of a finger across a smartphone’s touch-screen.
In intraday trading shortly after 2:30 p.m., Apple shares rose 1.8 percent, which gave the company a value of $227.1 billion.
Shares of Microsoft declined about 1 percent, giving the company a market capitalization of $226.3 billion.
Apple retained the spot at the close, even as both shares declined.
Microsoft dropped 4 percent to end the day with a market cap of $219.2 billion and Apple fell 1.1 percent to end at $222.1 billion.
The only American company valued higher is Exxon Mobil, with a market capitalization of $282 billion.
