Apple vs. Microsoft: The Numbers

Apple vs. Microsoft debates are common, but in truth, there’s no such thing as an overarching battle. Instead, there are numerous mini-debates that can be used to sum up both companies in a variety of ways. As an example, someone might be a die-hard OS X user and prefer it over Windows, but that’s just one debate. What about other debates that matter, such as revenue and usage?

Computerworld took out some of the hassle of doing the research by your lonesome, and have compiled six different categories where both Apple and Microsoft have been battling it out; revenue, profits, employees, market share, market cap and investment value over time.

If you’ve been following Apple to any degree in the past couple of years, you likely well understand that the company is rapidly growing, in both employees and overall marketshare. In May of last year, news struck that Apple’s market cap managed to match Microsoft’s, and as of April 14, Apple sits quite literally far past it ($306 billion vs. $212 billion).

In market share, Microsoft still dominates on the desktop, with an overall 92% of consumer PCs having Windows installed, but things change on the smartphone, where Apple has been far past Microsoft for the past couple of years. According to analyst firms Gartner and IDC, Microsoft will soon strike back in this area and by 2015, will surpass Apple.

The statistic here that’s most fun to me is the investment value over time. If you invested $1,000 in both Apple and Microsoft in 2000, your stock would be valued at $13,294 and $2,072 today, respectively. Likewise, if you invested the same $1,000 one year ago, you’d gain a mere $33 on your Microsoft stock, while you’d boost your Apple one by nearly 40%.

Apple’s momentum doesn’t seem to be slowing down in most areas, and that no doubt scares Microsoft just a little. But, as things go, all it takes is one really, really good product to turn things around, and hopefully Microsoft will be able to make a much larger impact with its smartphone presence soon, as it’s an important one to have.

Wall Street currently thinks more highly of Apple’s growth potential and overall prospects than it does of Microsoft’s. Investors were right last year, but only time can tell whether that outlook is still justified, given the company’s high stock price.