Back in May, Apple passed Microsoft as the most valuable technology company in the world based upon market capitalization, but the lead was slim, putting Microsoft just $2.94 billion down of Apple’s $222.12 billion. What’s the race look like now?
Well, here’s a hint: since May, Apple has released a new AppleTV, iPhone and iPod Touch while Microsoft has released… nothing. No surprise then that Apple’s now increased its lead over Microsoft to an astonishing $49.53 billion. Apple is now worth $263.75 billion… making it only $52.47 billion shy of displacing Exxon as the most valuable American company.
Curiously, there’s one number that Apple is behind on: patents. In the past eight years, Apple has secured only 1,033 patents, while Microsoft has gone on the offensive, racking up over 8,000 in five years alone. Even Dell has more patents than Apple. If only number of patents alone was an accurate measure of innovation, Dell stock would be a good investment right now.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
