Microsoft executives like to talk about Apple as an insignificant company with less than 5% of the worldwide market share of all PCs and servers sold. It needs to reassess its view. Apple has more cash than Microsoft and earns the equivalent of more than half of Microsoft's profits and over three quarters of its revenues.
That's not all, according to AppleInsider's report on Saturday.
If you too are wondering how you missed this, it's because Apple iPhone profits, in keeping with generally accepted accounting principles ( GAAP) rules are "˜hidden' on its balance sheet - which is why, "Apple also released its real earnings: US$11.68 billion in revenue and US$2.44 billion in net profits. The company also reported a cash position of US$24.5 billion."
So in fact, Microsoft's quarterly revenues grew by 9%, compared to Apple's non-GAAP revenue increase of 75.1% year over year.
Also see yesterday's piece in Fortune - great graph.
If Microsoft really is considering buying RIM, there's no time like the present.