‘Welcome, Again, IBM. Seriously.’
by John Paczkowski
Posted on October 23, 2007 at 3:03 PM PT
Apple is rapidly becoming a minor player in the computer business and may be swallowed up by Sun Microsystems Inc. or another rival.”
In the movie “Independence Day,” a PowerBook saves the Earth from destruction. Now it’s time to return the favor. Unfortunately, even devoted Mac addicts must admit that you look a little beleaguered these days: a confusing product line, little inspiration from the top, software developers fleeing.”
In 1997, shortly after Steve Jobs returned to Apple, Dell’s founder and chairman, Michael S. Dell, was asked at the Gartner Symposium and ITxpo97 how he would fix Apple, then deeply troubled financially. “What would I do?” Dell said. “I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”
Little did he know he’d be eating those words a few years later when Apple’s market capitalization surpassed not just Dell’s, but IBM’s as well (as some observers have been predicting for a while now). After the record-breaking quarter it posted yesterday, Apple is today the most valuable computer-maker in the world. Its market capitalization now stands at nearly $162 billion, $6 billion more than that of industry heavyweight IBM. In fact, its market cap is the fourth largest among technology companies, lagging behind only Cisco ($189 billion), Google ($208 billion) and Microsoft ($290 billion). Which is obviously great news for Apple shareholders, as John Murrell notes over at my old stomping grounds, Good Morning Silicon Valley: “… while Google-watchers go gaga over its soaring share price, note that an investor who bought Apple on the same day Google stock debuted in 2004 would have, as of the close of market yesterday, made 40 percent more than if the same money had been put into the search sovereign’s shares.
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Comments
Sounds like a good time to buy IBM.
Posted by rod sandcones at October 24th, 2007 at 8:31 amTime to buy IBM? They said that when the introduced PS/2 and OS/2. They said it when they became a consulting company. They said that when they dropped making PCs. And they said that when they sold their Thinkpads to Lenovo.
What else is IBM selling off, or quitting doing to make them more valuble?
Posted by Eric Welch at November 1st, 2007 at 8:42 am