Apple now worth more than Wintel (Microsoft and Intel combined)

87 Comments

At market close today, Microsoft (MSFT) had a market value of $201.59 billion. The market value of Intel (INTC) stands at $115.21 billion.

Microsoft’s Windows combined with Intel forms the portmanteau “Wintel,” which refers to personal computers that, when they’re working, can most charitably be described as upside-down and backwards Macs with weak immune systems.

So, add ’em both up and you find that “Wintel” is worth $316.8 billion. As you might imagine, we’ve been watching these values with anticipation for quite some time and today, for the first time (ever?), the closing value of Apple (AAPL) $317.60 billion exceeded that of Wintel. Just in time to make a nice slide for somebody’s WWDC keynote address (hint, hint).

Longtime Mac users, gaze at the headline, let it wash over you, and bathe in some of the purest Schadenfreude ever concocted.

This milestone reminds us of a quote uttered 13 lucky years ago:

What I can’t figure out is why he [Steve Jobs] is even trying [to be the CEO of Apple]? He knows he can’t win. – Bill Gates, June 1998

Smirk.

87 Comments

  3. OH, just too good to hear for a friday. 🙂

    Just a thought cause we all know that Apple will fall… any minute now……….. soon……….very soon……..

    Er, isn’t the world scheduled to end soon too????

    Just a thought,
    en

    Reply

    1. Good time to short Apple. Apple has gone about as far as it possibly can. Once the news media has a good look at frail Steve Jobs as he steps on stage and the audience gasps at his bony frame, the share price of Apple should quickly plummet. Nobody cares about what he has to say. They just want to see how much he wobbles about the stage. Wall Street has secretly declared iCloud a failure. Basically MobileMe:Redux. Amazon shares will soar as soon as Steve weakly whispers $25 per year for iCloud subscription. OSX Lion… meh… Windows 8 is almost ready. iOS 5… meh… Android already owns the smartphone market. WWDC is ended. Audience only shocked from seeing an 80 lb. Steve Jobs.

      Apple is merely wasting all that iCloud money just to boost Amazon and Netflix’s share price and sink it’s own. The best time to short Apple would be right before Steve makes his appearance. Apple shares will continue sinking, as usual, from Friday’s close and the downward momentum will be strong. Sell Apple and buy Netflix which will catch up to Apple in a matter of months with an ever-expanding P/E that should reach 100 by then.

      Wall Street is strongly betting against Apple’s survival in a world filled with Android and Windows devices. The first rule of Wall Street: Market share is everything.

      Reply

      5. Actually, I’d wager that the first rule of Wall Street is PROFIT dumbass. Who wants a 50% market share of a .5% profit market when you can have a 10% market share of a market that yields a 50% profit margin. Apple’s motto since Jobs’ return has been not to even bother playing where the money isn’t.

        Reply

      7. LOL, nothing like a fool who gives himself a ludicrous name that he aspires to.

        Of all things to mention Amazon shares soaring is laughable. A wise investor would not be promoting a bubble stock like Amazon or Netflix.

        As for your “first rule”, tell that to Nokia. Tell that to Dell and HP and Microsoft. Apple is now worth as much as Microsoft and Intel combined. In a year, it’ll be worth as much as Dell, HP, Microsoft and Intel combined. Book it.

        You sir, are the FoolishInvestor. A fool and his money are soon parted.

        Reply

      8. Lastly, about the iCloud subscription rate, and the fee paid by Apple to the labels.

        You do realize that Apple’s strategy is no different than the iTunes Music Store strategy? It’s meant to use their leverage from device sales, iPods, iPhones, iPads and iMacs to run the iCloud at breakeven. This level of breakeven is lower than for any other entity, aka Amazon, Netflix, etc.

        The end result will be that the other entities will run their own offerings at a loss. The other thing that it does is set the minimum bar for the other entities on price negotiations with the labels. The labels won’t settle for less than the existing contracts they already have from Apple.

        Once again, Apple is setting the market benchmark which the other players have to follow.

        Reply

      9. Apple stock may seem incredibly high; but even with 0% growth, it’s calculated that by 2015 Apple will have as much CASH as its total stock market value. That fact alone means that Apple easily has room to grow.

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      10. Pretty sure he’s joking. OR he is one of the most visionless individuals ever.

        Netflix is about to be screwed by ISP’s that are going to throttle anyone connecting to Netflix.

        Reply

        1. He was joking, with some very good tongue in cheeks. He even tried to clue in the ones lacking a sarcasm detection gun, near the end of his piece with:
          “Sell Apple and buy Netflix which will catch up to Apple in a matter of months with an ever-expanding P/E that should reach 100 by then.” … “The first rule of Wall Street: Market share is everything.”

          Sadly, it appears, he was still a bit too clever for the most who had responded to him so far.

  5. I think there should be a reality show called “Eat Those Words” where morons who utter stupid stuff have to come back, after their utterances are proven wrong, and explain their stupidity and apologize for their words.

    Reply

    3. Sounds like a Japanese game show, but the morons would have to wear a chicken suit when giving the apology, and get tar’d and feathered at the same time.

      Reply

    6. I FULLY AGREE Jim on the “Eat Those Words” show. Because if that were true, Apple, Steve Jobs and it’s fans would have to eat their words when then used to make FUN OF INTEL because they were typically featured on PCs. Apple assured it’s customers it had a plenty powerful enough computer, yet it got to the point where PC’s were way more than double as fast as any Mac because their processor couldn’t keep up with Intel.

      Why did they make fun of Intel? Because the mentality of apple and it’s fans is to make fun of things, remember? And the Intel was on the PC, so, “Hey, we should make fun of that too!”. And
      Steve Jobs wanting to show he was the “mighty warrior” he was helped to appease his fans by making some comments as well. But as it turned out, PC as it’s always been, was the better computer and had made the better choices for the future.

      It got to the point it was going to hurt Apple miserably if they didn’t do something. So it happened. They had to recompile all of OSX to run on Intels, LOL. And when that happened, many older Mac users were left out in the cold and mounted an internet complaints against Apple. It’s still there if you google around. Some were pretty mad, but most still tried to stand by apple even though they had been screwed. Finally the new intel macs came out. And within a couple years, apple fans started gloating about the intel chips ( of course).

      So yes, I think they should all accept that it really happened and they were wrong. But most apple fans will NEVER admit to anything like this. But in a fair world they’d be invited on to that reality show called “Eat Those Words”. And on this show would also be the CEO’s of AMD who made fun of intel as well, around 4 or 5 years back. Some sfaff at AMD challenged Intel to a public “duel” (not with real swords), but a competition etc.. Intel just was grown up about it and ignored them.

      Again, those from AMD and Apple, along with 1000 die hard apple fans who made fun of Intel, should appear on “Eat those Words” most definitely.

      Reply

  9. Funny, I track this stat, and even posted yesterday at Asymco.com that Apple might pass Wintelopoly today, but didn’t look because Apple was down.

    I use Google Finance, and it shows Apple at $316.4B, and the Wintelopoly at $316.8B. Just a rounding error!

    Anyhow, my next price target is for Apple to rise to its natural level over $500, and then be worth more than Dell, HP, Microsoft and Intel combined! Now, wouldn’t that be precious!

    Reply

      1. $355 and a quick pop to $360+ Monday would indicate new highs soon …..

        $340 and a quick drop $330 would pressure Apple down to probably $319 …..

        Monday we will see …..

        Reply

    2. Google finance is sloppy on using the right number of outstanding shares. I know that by their outdated numbers, the market caps of IBM and XOM are overstated, and AAPL is understated.

      Reply

    1. @24january1984, Just because apple is worth more doesn’t mean a mac is the better computer. It isn’t by far. From what I’ve gathered, the main sales are due to ipods, iphones, ipads and their entire mobile market strategy. iMac is horribly over priced, slow and has historically used outdated, mid-grade parts. So, no you wouldn’t be ready for me. And worse, I’d be right.

      Reply

  15. Ok, so I get the M$ bashing. I do it all the time and I get that Intel processors have a long history with Microshaft hardware vendors but why the Intel bashing? Yes, I know about the stickers and the lame ass adverts (except the advert when Apple switched to Intel, that was LOL)

    Sorry not trying to start a flame war, just curious……

    Reply

    1. Err, because Apple was nearly crushed by the Wintel behemoth? Because Intel had everybody convinced that if you didn’t have a Pentium, your computer was a lame toy? Because of the megahertz myth? Because of the Pentium III privacy debacle?

      Reply

      1. Speaking of the lame toy accustation, wasn’t it always fun to have this conversation….

        PC dork: Is that a Mac?
        Mac guy: Yes, it is.
        PC dork: Macs aren’t ‘serious’ computers… they are just toys.
        Mac guy: Why do you say that? You can do all sorts of things with them.
        PC dork: Yeah, but their aint no games for Macs.

        Reply

        2. @macromancer, Notice the assumption that the PC guy is the dork to give him a derogatory name? Note that in the ImAMac adverts they feature the PC guy as a Dork. Note that the Mac guy has the body of a teenager, in order to target him towards teens to mid twenty somethings. OR to also make PC look dumb because people will assume fat people are dumb. Either way.

          That is called advertising. Note that you fell for that hook line and sinker. As it goes, calling a Mac a “TOY” is a bit of an exaggeration since it can do anything any other computer can do. Why? Because IT IS AN INTEL PC to begin with, duh! It’s the SAME computer as a PC. However there is the OS to consider. You know how apple fans of iphone count all the apps on their phone? Well funny how they refuse to do that when it’s their home computer desktop!

          Proving there is a double standard. And a phone is NOT the most important thing as it’s mostly for phone calls. But a home computer is expected to do just about everything. Macs have a smaller base of software, ok? And as for games, they run far less games. that is true. Why spend double for a slower mac, that can’t run 1/2 the stuff? And worse, Macs have a much lower selection of good graphics cards.

          Now if you want a $2000 facebook machine (iMac i7) then fine. But at least admit that while you aremaking fun of those who use a PC, that you haven’t the faintest clue of what you are even talking about. OH, wait, you won’t admit to anything. I forgot that part.

      2. @ *LOUD BUZZER GOES OFF* — Sorry, but wrong. You are saying because intel had people “convinced”, as if to say they could have just stuck with apples old power processors etc, and all would be just fine. It had nothing to do with convincing anyone. Apple computers could NOT keep up with any computer that had an intel in it PERIOD! Intel pulled ahead. It had NOTHING to do with anything else. All CPU manufacturers were trying to pull ahead and nobody knew who the victor would be. For a while people thought it was going to be AMD, but they got stuck and could not come up with a faster chip. In fact, Apple at one point was going to put all AMD’s in their computers. Then it changed. Apple simply picked the fastest chip and that’s the end of your guess work. You’re wrong, and that’s that.

        Reply

  21. For the last five years, there was always the buzz that Apple would be out of business since it’s desktop market share would never grow beyond a certain point and Microsoft was as solid as ever. One thing for certain, it shows that market share isn’t everything.

    So, even though the point is very obvious, Apple is still being predicted to fail at some point and I’m not sure how or why that is being projected by Wall Street. Apple seems to be steadily growing in revenue despite Wall Street saying it can’t grow any more. It’s really confusing for me to try to understand Wall Street’s view of Apple.

    Reply

    1. To understand Wall Street’s view of Apple, you need to know they look to the company with the largest financial presence in technology from which, everyone else is compared.

      Apple has been used by Wall Street to contrast the difference between a lesser opponent and juggernaut like Microsoft for so long, the Street is struggling to grasp the notion that, under a new coach, Apple took the Cup from Microsoft.

      Microsoft lost the puck to Apple and Wall Street is still looking at the Jumbo-tron for the slo-mo replay. The Street recognizes the puck has changed hands, but they can’t figure out how.

      It’s simple really, Apple changed the rules of the game to level the playing field. Under Microsoft’s dynasty, might made right (market share) and with Apple’s resurgence came a new meme; intelligence is fashionable. Work smarter for a better return on investment.

      Microsoft and its best practices is so-last-century and Wall Street refuses to let go.

      Reply

      1. Under Microsoft’s dynasty, might made right (market share) and with Apple’s resurgence came a new meme; intelligence is fashionable.

        Years ago, the audience (market share) at the game was a sea of Microsoft jerseys, which engulfed the small patch of Apple fans in the nose-bleed seats, who had to yell to be heard over the boos.

        Today we see Apple jerseys in the Microsoft seats, but mostly the Apple fans are content with their small pockets of seating throughout the stadium.

        Reply

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