At $400 billion, Apple is worth more than Greece

[rocketpig]

disolitude said:

rocketpig said:

Kasz216 said:

disolitude said:
Man, looking at this Microsoft is seriously undervalued right now compared to some of its peers on a P/E or FCF basis...

It's because people are all about growth.

People see Microsoft and don't really see a strong path to future growth.  Though I do agree microsoft is undervalued, if anything due to their diversity.

Apple is a lot like Nintendo.  Huge based off "innovations" and putting things in a way customers actually want it... but with little stableness behind it.   Meaning that it can be pretty volitile and go bad fast if they start making the wrong moves. 

It's hard to compare Apple to Nintendo anymore. Seven years ago? Maybe. But now they have profitable divisions in their Mac line, iPhone, iPad, iPod, iTunes Store, and now they're going after school textbooks. Within the year, they're going to start pursuing the smart television market. That is beginning to turn into a pretty well-rounded set of offerings.

Microsoft is definitely more diverse but much of that diversity struggles to earn them any money and a few divisions are giant moneypits. Their "real" money comes from Windows and Office with the Xbox line starting to come around. They're in more danger over the next ten years than Apple. Microsoft's main money makers (outside of Xbox) aren't only saturated, they're in decline. And they will face real competition from iOS/Android over the next few years. In short, if people stop buying computers and start replacing them with tablets (which Microsoft has ZERO stake in at this point), Microsoft could be royally and utterly fucked.

Not that I think they will, but it is a real possibility. Best case scenario is that Microsoft's core businesses will remain stable in the next decade. There is almost zero space for growth.

I don't see it this way. Though things look a little disjointed, Microsoft here is playing a chess game and is slowly moving the pieces in to place. Win 8, Xbox 720, Windows Phone...will all align in the next 12-24 months. And thats just their consumer side, business, tools and services side is head and shoulders above anyone else.

They have a total monopoly with office, mail exchange and cloud services. Even if you were to wipe windows off the map today microsoft is profitable. 

Finally, Windows 8 is coming and this is the tablet ecosystem that competes with Apple and iOS. On top of that, Windows 7 remains unchallenged in the desktop world and will be a viable option for many years to come. So microsoft has everything to gain from Win 8 and not much to lose.

Microsoft has been "just around the corner" from really getting rolling in the mobile market for about ten years now. You can bank on Win 8/ Phone 8 finally getting them there but I see it as more of too little, too late. It's just more of the same. I think they'll do well enough for themselves and they'll carve out a small corner of the market but they can't keep losing in new markets and expect me to keep caring about their products. Outside of the Xbox, they haven't made a splash in a new market in 15 years.

And Win7 is hardly "unchallenged". One of Microsoft's biggest problems is that they can't get people to upgrade to the damned thing. Ten years ago, Apple had about 4% of the market. Now, they're responsible for 12-13% of computer sales (not including iPad). Linux, while still just a small nuisance, holds more market than it did ten years ago (and it dominates server space). And that's not even including the incursions from the phone/tablet market that will continue to eat into traditional computer sales. Microsoft needs to completely re-think what it's doing because it is slowly moving into irrelevance, much like IBM. It won't be next year, it won't even be ten years from now. But in 20 or 30 years, they could be another case of "hey, remember those guys, where are they now?"