At $621 Billion, Apple is Most Valuable Company Ever

[Kami3k]

LOL, "Driven by rumors of the iPhone5" Every rumor I've seen should make it drop!

 

[Kami3k]

[citation][nom]sacre[/nom]Apple is doing something right. [/citation]

Marketing to their cult following. That cult dies and so does Apple.

 

[halcyon]

Apple does surprise me sometimes. I'd planned on disliking OS X 10.8. Its new features seemed downright lame to me. ...but for $20 on every Mac I have (5 between work and personal) I said, "What the heck?". I'm embarrassed to admit that I kinda like it now, not that my opinion is important. Its stable and several of the new features are kinda cool. ...and it remains mostly headache free. Yeah, worth the $4/machine it works out to. Yeah, I've grown tired of my now-stale iPhone 4s. ...but I wonder if Apple is gonna do something cool with the 5. I like their stuff fine but realize I can't afford it as much as I'd like. I have a feeling I'm not unique in my feelings. ...and I honestly wouldn't call myself a sheep.

 

[anti-painkilla]

Yes - Apple has been successful at marketing. That is it. They made an awesome product that people love. They hyped it up and told people they wanted it, it became a status symbol.

But you really have to wonder how much of this is speculation rather than actual value. As people get over Apple products they will go the same way as BB. Hopefully they have the smarts to stop that, but I cannot see them increasing in value doing the same thing. Eventually they will decline, just as M$ has.

 

[bllue]

It's shocking really. Not because it's gotten "most valuable company ever" but because the company is such a useless company to society overall. It's products are nothing but fads. It's no energy, oil, , pharmaceutical, etc company. It provides nothing but items for people to feel "cool" with.

 

[digiex]

How much farther they will inflate before it burst?

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]nuvon[/nom]I know a lot of people don't like Steve Jobs. Reason? I don't know, but all I know is Apple won't be what it is today without him. Also, Steve Job is NOT one of the richest persons in the world, not even close to top....100? but people still call him "greedy"[/citation]

he was what, either the 6th or 16th richest people at one point, i dont know were he ended up, but i do know that he was payed almost exclusively in stocks. if he were still alive, he probably would have cracked the top 5 by now.

 

[rantoc]

[citation][nom]jerryQ[/nom]"At $621 Billion, Apple is Most Valuable Company Ever"..."The previous record holder was Microsoft, which peaked on December 30, 1999 at $660 billion."Most valuable company ever?[/citation]

Wolfgang is not a fanboi always spinning everything to his favourite brands advantage /end sarcasm.

Seriously thoo, try to get unbiased journalist Toms or professional ones that dont make these kind of mistakes hardly even a 10 year old would make. There have been way to many examples of the above from that writer.

 

[jdwii]

Like someone said this is amazing since Apple almost went out of business 15 years ago Steve jobs really did "fix" this company.

How much i liked to say this or that about Apple this is still pretty amazing and most company's cant do what he did. I'd say most of Apple's success was on marketing not manufacturing not to mention Ipods,Iphones are easier to use then Androids and other devices.

Someone asked "why don't people don't like Steve jobs?" i'm one of those people who like him and hate him at the same time. I like him because he is a fantastic CEO and he knew Apple could not take Microsoft on in the desktop market but he also knew their was many other markets as well which is what he capitalized on. Hate him because he wasn't for Opensource not to mention the excessive patenting Apple does!, i also hated how he moved all of the manufacturing and the main reason why Apple is worth so much money is because of this. But then again almost all company's do this now :/.


So again good job Apple even if your not the most valuable company ever you sure did overcome Microsoft value and just to think 15 years ago they helped you guys stay in business(remember that Apple fans).

As for me i'm a android/W7 user but i must say IOS is better on tablets any day when compared to W8!

 

[freggo]

[citation][nom]fazers_on_stun[/nom]Corrected for inflation, Microsoft was worth around $850BN at their peak, so Apple still has a way to go to surpass them.[/citation]

That's pretty much the point I was making. 600Billion 10+ years ago is worth more than 600Billion today.

 

[spentshells]

This is the world we live in .... everything apple has ever produced or ever will produce holds a value nowhere near that so how could it possibly be worth that much ? The imaginary market.

 

[Hspito]

[citation][nom]house70[/nom]There is a simple reason for that. Just look at Apple's patent trolling in the last few years, and remember that all this cretinism was started by Jobs' extremist ideas about what tech should be. Initially, around the time of that interview, Jobs was indeed a brilliant marketer. No, he did not personally invent anything (although he took the implied credit for everything good that came to Apple after that, forget the army of designers, software and hardware both, that worked their arses off for this company; can any of you name one single time where credit was publicly given to any of these designers, for instance?...didn't think so), but he had a good idea in that speech.Unfortunately, he turned from being a Lenin of Apple revolution into a Stalin, hell-bent in going after anything and everything that posed a significant threat to his empire. From patent-trolling to injunctions, him and his followers never spared a dime to that end, even if that meant taking away from actual innovation (incremental upgrades that are gradually disabling older gen devices, forcing customers to buy the newer ones again and again are not exactly innovative). Plenty of Apple customers out there pissed off because of that. Add to that the fact that they are resorting exactly to the same tactics they are accusing their competition of (stealing and then shamelessly patenting the stolen tech, usually open source so they can not fight back on patent grounds), and you have a great picture of what this empire's vision has become for the tech world: a world-wide army of drones, all using the same device, all looking the same and without anything to individualize them. Luckily, there are more than 60% of mobile users in the world that believe there is something wrong with that picture (not to mention that the MacOS presence in the desktop/notebook world is symbolic at best), and that's why I believe there will always be an alternative to this grey-with-a-fruit-logo bleak tech future. I. personally, don't have a dog in this fight, and that is the advantage of using an open OS: I can like a manufacturer today, but if they let me down tomorrow, I can as easily turn to another one. THAT is what Jobs hated the most, people having other choices besides his company's products. I hated the fact that he died still young, nobody should go like that, but that was the best thing to happen to the tech world. Sad, but true. Just like he turned his company for the better at first, he single-handedly turned it into the equivalent of the communist Russia at the apex of Stalin's dictatorship. A lot of people have it in them to become great leaders, but very few have it in them to bear that greatness. One dude that did - and still does that_ is Gates, an example of great humanitarian, envied by Jobs for that effortless class act.[/citation]

I think is the people who gave him all the credit, not that he claim it. In an interview in All Things Digital he was asked about his inventions and what he answer was that he was just lucky he was able to put together an extraordinary team capable of designing and building amazing things he just got them together.(I'm paraphrasing) I can't recall any moment of him saying I build this, he always said " at Apple we......" he always said "we"
About the patent war, I'm with you, I understand a company trying to protect its design and stuff but requesting a patent for "slide to unlock" that's just ridiculous
I don't think he hated choices either when he came back to Apple he said in the keynote that people believe that in order for Apple to win MS had to loose and that was wrong they both could be winners. He understood that competition was good. I think he hated when other companies copied besides Apple of course .LOL

 

[zak_mckraken]

[citation][nom]apple_good_guys[/nom]You trolls are unbelievable. Apple is listed as the most valuable company ever. This is factual. There is no disputing it. But because the usual (tired and lame) comments trolling Apple didn't get voted up, now all of a sudden, it's someone from multiple accounts doing it?Grow up.[/citation]
Trollin'... Trollin'... Trollin' on the river.

 

[spectrablue]

Ever is strong words... my guess is the historians could emerge with some adjusted for inflation numbers on some past global monopolies and give Apple a run for its money; but perhaps not maybe even with inflation adjusting Apple's leveraging the global market like never before. Anti-Trust where are you? Apple keeps spreading its ecosystem around every consumer product leveraging a form of vertical and horizontal integration that would Make Sherman roll over in his grave.
"To protect the consumers by preventing arrangements designed, or which tend, to advance the cost of goods to the consumer" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act
Apple's high profit margins relatively compared to say SMD across its product lines should scream potential violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. What is especially egregious is that Apple won't license its software to hardware vendors to compete and prices are higher...its like Apple owns the railroad with vital tracks and doesn't even let competitors use them. And when competition does appear Google/SMD it sues the hell out of them. Never mind their abuse patenting rectangle thing. Enough is Enough...forget Apple's suit vs SMD...what should happen is Anti-Trust should be breathing down Apple like it did Standard Oil and AT&T in the day and consider forcing a break up between hardware and software.

 

[Guest]

Nice
I guess it's time for apple to start building iRocket, and write new patents for Mars exploration.