Wow, Apple, Wow.

[surferfromuk]

Given that Steve Jobs is about the only original creative Technological thinker left in the game from those humble origins of Personal Computing in the 1970's and now that Balmer is now the loony head of Microsoft I think the next five years are going to be really interesting.

Microsoft despite the fact that it makes trashy copycat second rate product is still an incredible all pervasive market share eating business machine and shows no sign of changing their ways from the kind of behavior that resulted in the anti-trust trials of the 90's.BBC iPlayer a perfect example - who knows exactly how MS managed to convince a public funded corporation the size of the BBC to adopt a windows only platform I'll never know or more recently their acquisition of facebook not as has been suggested to sell product but to block an itunes store plugin. Oh Yes, MS are still playing the 'consume your competitors strategic partners' game.

Balmer is as hardball a business player as they come but Steve's got the shiny sword of truth and is never afraid to post an 'open letter' slaying down *bullcrap*.

That said without Office Microsoft is BUST!!

If, for example, there was a major switch away from Office (iWork on Mac - Open Office on PC, Google Docs - maybe even iWork on PC!) then in a year or two Microsoft would begin to fall - quickly and hard.

Fortunately Steve Jobs is truly delivering his greatest work and through mind blowing innovation and a relentless deployment strategy ( and them super smart retail stores) he's carving vast inroads into old markets.

You can be sure if Steve Jobs is 'signaling' a tipping point then you can bet *something* is showing up on their radars deep inside Apple HQ.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple overtake Microsoft's market cap in 2008 *and* that will be the most ground shaking wake up call there is which truly could signal the beginnings of a total market share reversal...

 

[Much Ado]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple overtake Microsoft's market cap in 2008 *and* that will be the most ground shaking wake up call there is which truly could signal the beginnings of a total market share reversal...

Great post, at least until that last paragraph. I think that's way too optimistic. 2010, maybe.

 

[mrfrosty]

fortunately the underlying OS in inherantly more secure, partly because of apple's decisions to drop old platforms and move on (classic no longer supported, dos apps are still supported last time I looked at windows) and partly because of UNIX goodness. I'm not saying it wont happen, but it'll be really hard to do. Especially with the new application signing in leopard.

When was the last virus that ran is DOS ? HA HA !!! Look how easy the iPhone 1.1.1 was to break via a flaw with Safari.

 

[surferfromuk]

Great post, at least until that last paragraph. I think that's way too optimistic. 2010, maybe.

Optimistic, I agree but perhaps you'll humor me and agree that they are not entirely beyond the realms of possibility ?

If Apple have another year like this last one then the share price could potentially increase by another $100 bringing it within a cat's whisker of Microsoft's market Cap. Analysts are already talking about $250 per share for early 08.

If google doc's ever genuinely take off and begin eroding the dependance on Office (50% of MS revenue stream) then Microsoft could easily slip back a little say to $250 billion dollar market cap and you'd effectively have that very scenario.

The fact that we can even consider it is, as the original poster suggests, a remarkable enough turn of events for Apple.

Personally I think Steve Jobs is an unequalled technological visionary and his almost mystical perception of the PC paradigm is ultimately what is driving this turn-around. Balmer cannot simply 'buy' that kind of knowledge.

There are things about Steve that are even relatively unknown in tech circles like his influence whilst at Next in the development of World Wide Web 1.0 - things like that are simply beyond Balmer and always will be.

The real question is, of course, can Apple repeat in 2008 what they did in 2007.

If they can then incredible things could happen.

I for one dearly hope so.

(P.S..One sure fire way of accelerating the switch is to make a consumer based 46" LCD Apple Brand TV with integrated 'Apple TV + Apple class PVR', media streaming and ipod/iphone docking. Come on it's a serious no brainer!. Apple 'WOW FACTOR' in the living room of ordinary everyday folks!!!!)

 

[yetanotherdave]

When was the last virus that ran is DOS ? HA HA !!! Look how easy the iPhone 1.1.1 was to break via a flaw with Safari.

That wasn't a virus that broke the iPhone, it was a hack. A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user.. The iPhone hack most definitely did require knowledge of the user and a lot of work and interaction to do.

When the last DOS virus was written is not really the point, I was talking about the underpinnings of the system that define what a user is and isn't allowed to do in the system, and how programs are run. UNIX beats microsoft easily, and the model for how it was set up has been in place for decades.

 

[IJ Reilly]

The real question is, of course, can Apple repeat in 2008 what they did in 2007.

My first reaction to this question was to say no, but on reflection I'm not so sure. The key is the iPhone. If sales really kick in next year as some predict, Apple will be selling three gangbuster products. On the downside, in terms of growth, is the iPod. Sales are not growing nearly as quickly as they were for many years. Eventually the company's growth rate will have to level off. When that will happen is difficult to predict. In the meantime, we can probably safely say that Apple surpassing Microsoft in market cap is possible, if unlikely.

Incidentally, Apple's market cap and gross revenue was larger than Microsoft's until the early or mid-90s, if memory serves.

 

[Tilpots]

(P.S..One sure fire way of accelerating the switch is to make a consumer based 46" LCD Apple Brand TV with integrated 'Apple TV + Apple class PVR', media streaming and ipod/iphone docking. Come on it's a serious no brainer!. Apple 'WOW FACTOR' in the living room of ordinary everyday folks!!!!)

I hadn't even thought of that. Basically an HDTV IMAC. All you need is a wireless mouse and keyboard. The living room would never be the same! Better yet, you could control the whole set-up through your iPhone. I can't wait to live in the future.