Tech writer MG Siegler just noted a remarkable fact:
Apple's iPhone business alone is now bigger than Microsoft.
Not Windows. Not Office. Microsoft.
Think about that.
The iPhone did not exist five years ago. And now it's bigger than a company that, 15 years ago, was dragged into court and threatened with forcible break-up because it had amassed an unassailable and unthinkably profitable monopoly.
The iPhone also appears to be considerably more profitable than Microsoft.
In the December quarter, Apple's iPhone business generated $24.4 billion of revenue. Microsoft's whole company, meanwhile, from Windows to Office to servers to XBox, generated $20.9 billion.
If we assume that Apple generates the same operating profit margin on its iPhone business that it generates on its overall business--38%--the iPhone business generated about $9.3 billion of profit in the December quarter.
All of Microsoft, meanwhile, generated only $8.2 billion.
http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-bigger-than-microsoft-2012-2