Subscribe RSSThe blink came Wednesday when Apple , the maker of iPods, iPhones and iPads, shot past Microsoft , the computer software colossus, to become the world’s most valuable technology company.
This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in subject history for Apple, which had been given up for dead only a decade earlier, and its co-founder and visionary chief executive, Steven P. Jobs . The double-quick rising value attached to Apple by investors also heralds an important cultural shift: Consumer tastes have overtaken the needs of house as the leading force shaping technology.
Microsoft, with its Windows and Office software franchises, has dominated the relationship most people had with their computers for almost two decades, and that was reflected in its size up market capitalization. But the click-clack of the keyboard has ceded ground to the swipe of a finger across a smartphone’s set in motion screen.
And Apple is in the right place at the right time. Although it still sells computers, twice as much revenue is coming from give out-held devices and music. Over all, the technology industry sold about 172 million smartphones last year, compared with 306 million PCs, but smartphone sales grew at a tread five times faster.
