The Truth said:
There's no doubt that MikeB's Asset talk is wrong (although in very basic terms it's true), however it's no fact that MS are the bigger company. The size of a company can be measured in various ways, Market Cap being one of the main ones. Assets, employee count, product count, revenue and worldwide influence can also decide on how big a company is, so it's quite opinionated. Microsoft are in a better financial state I think would be a better way of putting it. |
Correct, Sony is bigger when talking about assets, equity and workforce. Market Cap is a very subjective measurement greatly affected by hype and momentum. For example the tiny Be Inc was once a billion dollar company based on Market Cap, basically because their product was technically superior to Windows. But Microsoft with its monopoly might, pressured companies not to do business with them and they bankrupted quickly.
The bulk of Micorosoft's Market Cap value is based on this monopoly. If the market decides to opt for alternatives en masse, the Market Cap value will take a plunge. It could change dramatically within a very short timespan. Sadly currently most good alternatives have meanwhile been destroyed or minimalized, but who knowns maybe Google, Apple (if they get support from hardware manufacturers and allow cloning) or some other big company can change this for the future. IMO all that's really needed is viable competition for desktop PCs, also cloud computing could help bring down the monopoly.
