Apple has surpassed American oil giant, Exxon Mobil, to become the largest company in the world by market capitalisation. Having come close several times this week, Apple’s market capitalisation — its share price multiplied by the number of shares in circulation – closed at $337bn yesterday, $7bn more than that of Exxon Mobil.
Its 15 months since Apple became more valuable than rival Microsoft, to take second place in the league table of the world’s most valuable companies.
More significantly, it’s 14 years and one week since Apple CEO Steve Jobs, back at the helm of the company he co-founded, brokered a deal with Microsoft chief, Bill Gates, to ensure the company’s survival. Microsoft invested $150m in return for non-voting rights stock and guaranteed to produce a Mac version of Microsoft Office for at least the next five years. In return, Apple made Internet Explorer the default web browser on the Mac and dropped its lawsuit which claimed that Microsoft had copied the look and feel of the Mac OS in Windows.
Office is still available for the Mac, but Microsoft has long since killed the Mac version of Internet Explorer.
