Digital Home Thoughts: Microsoft on the Road to Nowhere

"And indeed, if you look at Microsoft’s stock chart for the period in question, you see a nearly flat line, up only about 6%. The analysis is a little more favorable if you use the proper measure, adjusted closing price, which accounts not just for splits but for dividends and distributions. If you invested $1000 in Microsoft stock on January 2, 2001, and reinvested all your dividends, you have roughly $1,468 today, or a 47% return over nearly 10 years."

It was big news last week when word came that Apple's market cap surpassed Microsoft's. Unsurprisingly, fanboys from both camps started talking about the event in earnest. Behind this announcement, however, is an interesting tale of the PC industry in general. A lot of what writer Ed Bott makes sense. The PC has increasingly become a commodity with little differentiating competitors where Apple has branched out and remained as much a brand as a product. Ballmer definitely is being offered up as the sacrificial lamb for all that is wrong with Microsoft, though I wonder if Bill Gates would have done any better.