“Almost certainly, Apple will soon hit $500bn in market capitalization – half a trillion dollars,” Dan Gillmor writes for The Guardian. “So, based on its current growth, it’s fair to wonder if it will become the world’s first trillion-dollar company.”
“If achieved, it would represent more than just a triumph of one company’s plan,” Gillmor writes. “It would speak to the way global economics and commerce have shifted – in both useful and worrisome ways.”
Gilmore writes, “Let me tell you how Apple could reach the trillion-dollar mark – and why I doubt it will… Among other issues, Apple’s scorched-earth patent war against Android hardware makers (though, curiously, not Google itself) and lockdown tactics with the iOS that powers iPhones and iPads are, I believe, blatantly anticompetitive.”
MacDailyNews Take: It is foolish to claim that creating vertically integrated platforms and protecting IP from blatant theft are “blatantly anticompetitive.”
Gilmore writes, “Apple will be obliged to face a reality that and almost all other US tech companies try to ignore. As they achieve more efficiency, they are doing so at the cost of jobs in their own country and doing too little about harsh labor conditions imposed by their suppliers.”
Full article – Think Before You Click™ – here.
MacDailyNews Take: The anti-Apple FUD machine rolls on with the talking point du jour. As we wrote so presciently on January 25, the day after Apple’s earnings blowout and the day before The New York Times‘ hit-piece: “Cue the semi-annual, massively overblown, contrived Apple product ‘issue’ with the obligatory ‘-gate’ suffix in 3… 2…”
Dan Gilmore is a fool.
My mama was wrong, there are some stupid questions.
Stupid questions like this?: -“Hey, Are you wearing brackets?” -“No, you fool. I just ate a transformer. This are crumbs”
And, if Apple reach a trillion dollar company, they will say: “A trillion dollar is not what it used to be”.
The funny thing about exponential growth is that most people don’t realize that it just gets faster and faster when results are measured in absolute terms.
A $1 trillion company? It could realistically happen in 5 years.
As long as Apple makes products people WANT to buy, they’ll thrive. If ever they’re led by marketing “geniuses”, they’ll whither and die.
Talking points…talking points…talking points. They’re everywhere. Fox News perfected their use awhile ago. Now it’s how Windoze/Android fed tech bloggers lick the hand that feeds them.
Of Course It Will
Listening to the constant chatter about the law of large numbers is Infuriating . The talking heads completely misinterpret what it is all about. This law is only appropriate if you completely dominate the market that you are in. Back in the other eras Cisco and Microsoft achieved this in their respective markets. Apple is in at least five or six markets with less than twenty percent penetration. Consequently one must calculate that the asymptotic number for the law of large numbers to apply is at least twenty-five times bigger than it is now. For the law to apply to Apple their market cap will have to approach ten trillion dollars ($10,000,000,000,000). For those that believe, enjoy the ride.
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“Listening to the constant chatter about the law of large numbers is Infuriating . The talking heads completely misinterpret what it is all about. This law is only appropriate if you completely dominate the market that you are in.”
Excellent point, Charles–thank you for making it. Apple has so much runway still in front of it…
It’s the Guardian. I always think before I click. Same for the Beeb.
It will probably happen, due to inflation if nothing else.
How is that going to happen? Don’t you see how quickly Apple’s P/E is getting compressed. They’ll have to almost double revenue and profits to move the share price up a measly 10%. It would take years for Apple to double the share price at this present rate.
simple, buy Wall Street and fire them all.
+1
Of course we’re talking years, even decades. But I’m not talking about anything Apple does, I’m talking about the natural upward movement of the price of everything due to inflation. All Apple has to do is stop the price from going down (which could be hard if/when competitors finally get their act together).
Though by the time Apple does reach a trillion, as noted above it won’t be the same value a trillion is now.
The Fourth Estate is actively goading T Cook into either making a statement he will regret while they back Apple into a moral dilemma corner.
It’s a win win situation for them.
The Times has decided to address ethics in the world, not a bad idea, but one they have done a horrible job a in the way they have written about it. Technology, and Apple in particular, is the latest victim of this brand of self righteous journalism. In medicine, they have chosen sides and decided that any physician or organization that takes pharmaceutical money for talks or even for commercial support of non-profits is evil. In doing so they have hypocritically singled out many fine physicians and organizations and attacked their integrity, all the while getting their own support from advertisers of similar ilk and influence. They deride the conditions in China’s factories for high tech toys, while racking int he money on advertising for those toys and some of the horrific (by their world view) companies who make clothing in China. The times reporters are guilty of skewering the morals of other industries, while giving themselves a pass, choosing the one dimensional headline grabbing issue rather than investigating the complexity of the situation. Certainly, they seek to increase their own advertisers and have no plans to turn down morally questionable dollars. We are in a global economy because we can have an affordable lifestyle due to the world’s inequities. Perhaps the Sunday’s times Macy’s adds will be pulled because the Times would never profit from sweatshop labor? Pulease!!!!
Instead of the alleged harm done by Apple, one should focus on the good: creation of thousands of jobs in US and overseas, enabling advances in education, bringing families and friends close together. Even the thousands of jobs created by the Android ecosphere should be viewed as a direct result of Apple.
Perhaps some workers may suffer as a result of achieving a greater good.
The guy should Google Intellectual Property, as long as Google hasn’t already wiped that phrase from all the storage space on Earth.