Market capitalisation figures have Apple worth more than Microsoft for the first time since 1989. And Apple nearly went out of business in the 90s. I suppose selling hardware with huge profit margins (iPhone, iPad, laptops and iMac) helps a lot!
Apple BTW is valued at $222bn and Micro$oft at $219bn.
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Hasn't Microsoft's dominance also been damaged by some of the court battles they had e.g browser wars, also greater corporate take-up of some of the free alternatives to their product e.g. Office and Linux based OSs? But you are right about Apple being over priced - although quality used to be v good.
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I expect Apple are going to have a lot of days in court soon due to patient issues. All the smart phone makings seem to be sueing each other.
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And Apple will win most of the cases. This is one area that Apple has been strong at - it has lots of patents and will protect them. The iPhone for example is mediocre hardware wise but well ahead in terms of marketing, market share, profitability, etc.
I assume you meant patent issues Rattle ;-)
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M$ used to have the same issues. They were successfully sued by the company I previously worked for patent infringement, they invested (= took a large stake - >10%) in the company and paid a massive fine. Embedded OLE was one of the infringements IIRC.
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