513b yen = $5.4b*

Sony's total assets = $230.5b

Sony's total equity (assets - liabilities) = $50b

Sony are not about to go bankrupt by any stretch of the imagination. Pointing out that Microsoft are bigger is a bit redundant. I don't think anyone would ever dispute that. They do have less assets and lower equity, though.

* straight currency conversion at current rates.

Actually Sony's equity is 3 trillion yen or $31.7 billion according to their last financial report:

http://www.google.com/finance?fstype=bi&q=NYSE:SNE

$130b in assets and $100b in liabilities.

lol @ all the pissed people! GJ Mike

Yes please!  I do enjoy his latest false quote that you have in your sig!  This is the kind of crap he tries to pull all the time.  Deceive others when he know's nothing.

kowen, you remind me more and more of Victor Meldrew every day.

I don't bloody belive it!

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.

On another note, I think MikeB has done a good job on many predictions, but sometimes not so good ;)

"Even a blind dog finds it's balls eventually."

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.