I found out something interesting this week. I had always been under the impression that Microsoft were by far the biggest “computer” company in the world. I mean their software is used on the vast majority of the PC’s, laptops and servers throughout every country, their percentage share of operating systems when compared to Apple for example is reported by Wikipedia to be as much as 90% in Microsoft’s favour – not bad in anyone’s book!
So you can imagine my surprise when I read this week that Apple (yes them with the less than 10% market share in operating systems) were worth more than not only Microsoft, but Microsoft and Intel put together! According to several sources, Microsoft is worth a staggering 201.59 billion dollars. The processor giant Intel, whose chips are used in all of our computers (including those Mac’s from Apple) are worth a paltry 115.21 billion dollars. However Steve’s Job’s (yep that’s the name of the guy that started Apple) little Californian company is worth a whopping 317.60 billion dollars, more than both Microsoft and Intel put together!
I was staggered by this information, until I started to think about the incredible things that this company has achieved during recent history. If we take for granted their Macintosh computers and MacBook laptops as their “bread and butter” products up until only ten years ago in 2001 when they launched the first iPod, the classic MP3 player that was so successful that it spawned into many different varieties, iPods so small that you wouldn’t know you were holding them but that still held 100’s of tracks through to massive iPods with screens that allow you to watch full length video movies – great for those boring flights.
The iPod in its various styles is still very much around today, however nowadays you can connect it to the Internet, browse websites on it, send emails and of course you can still play music on it! It’s amazing that this product has taken the world by storm given that it was the first MP3 player that Apple ever developed!
Another first was the iPhone, launched by Apple in 2007, yes it allows you to make phone calls (of course), they also integrated the features of the iPod into it, allowing their iPhone users to play music, video, connect to the Internet to browse websites and send emails. Having owned a number of “smart” phones, including the iPhone I can report its simply the best ‘mobile phone’ I have ever owned. Apple launched its App Store which allowed users of the latest iPods and iPhones to download applications licenced to work on Apple products, at present the store has over half a million applications that can be downloaded, some are free whilst others have to be paid for.
Apple’s latest range of technology was the iPad – again a device that sold in its millions very quickly. It has now been surpassed by the iPad2, a faster, better and more technologically advanced device. Again, I just had to buy the iPad when it was launched – much to Liesl’s frustration – it’s simply a great product. It looks and works like a dream, I have used a number of other iPad wannabe’s and they simple are not as polished nor finished as the Apple product.
That’s about it for this month. If you are interested in finding out more about and of the Apple products then you can jump go to their website at www.apple.com and use the links at the top of the page.