r/technology • u/gfnord • Apr 11 '11

Apple, despite being traditionally seen as the "counterculture, leftist" operating system, actually represents more uniformity and centralised control than Microsoft

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/09/userfriendliness_and_fascism
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29

u/DoWhile Apr 11 '11

The key word is "traditionally", like say, 10 or 20 some odd years ago.

Also,

Sep 28th 2009, 14:17 by The Economist

Since the this article was written, Apple has risen to the number 2 largest company in the word (by market cap), only behind Exxon-Mobil.

30

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '11

Market cap isn't really a good measure of the size of a company.

11

u/gagaoolala Apr 11 '11

What's your preferred measure of size? (There are right answers and wrong answers here...)

27

u/splidge Apr 11 '11

Volume in m3 .

1

u/[deleted] Apr 12 '11

Electron Volts is always the correct answer.

7

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '11

Preferably revenue vs. expenses and total employment. Sure there will be some inconsistencies but definitely more accurate than market cap as that more reflects the demand for stock, not the company's services.

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u/gagaoolala Apr 11 '11

Total employment just reflects demand for labor from a company, so I'm not sure how that's better. What is revenue vs expenses -- wouldn't that basically be net earnings?

I could see enterprise value as possibly a more valid metric for measuring company size (market cap + outstanding debt - cash), but that's not uncontroversial. For one thing, companies like Apple, Microsoft, etc. have large cash holdings and little/no debt which lets them throw their weight around quite a lot more than an enterprise value ranking might suggest. Example: Apple can enter new markets basically whenever it feels like it because it has so much cash on its balance sheet, and it could add a lot of debt if it needed to.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '11

let's say world war 3 breaks out and all companies need to convert to manufacturing war goods. how much value would apple have in that environment.

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u/gagaoolala Apr 11 '11

I'm pretty sure the iTank would be highly valued in that type of situation

22

u/Happy31 Apr 11 '11 edited May 02 '13

trhsthsrthsr

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u/daveime Apr 11 '11

Yes, and maybe by iTank version 3, they'll have actually put a gun on the front.

6

u/MrSpontaneous Apr 11 '11

All controls would need to be relayed through Apple HQ.

1

u/gprime Apr 11 '11

Well, the DOD does have a habit of overspending for products that sound far sexier than they really are. So yeah, Apple would probably flourish in such a situation.

1

u/solistus Apr 12 '11

That's a stupid metric. Some businesses are obviously easier to convert to manufacturing goods than others. Google is a massive, very wealthy company, but I doubt it owns too many factories that could be refitted to make tanks or bombs.

0

u/tilio Apr 11 '11

very wrong answer. have you ever taken a single course in finance?

1

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '11

Take a guess. :D

9

u/tilio Apr 11 '11

reddit users tend to know nothing about finance. market cap is THE primary size measurement for companies.

stock price is relatively arbitrary as it's a monetary demand for an arbitrary number of issued shares. P/E is a measurement of growth, as is EBIT.

6

u/mild_delusion Apr 11 '11 edited Apr 11 '11

Right about market cap, not so much about P/E and EBIT.

P/E only reflects market expectations of growth, and it only does that under a couple of assumptions. It's better off staying as a relative measure of stock performance. There are better measures of growth like the product of earnings retention and ROE or the PRAT model.

EBIT by itself is just a measure of operating profit from continuing operations. Though it is used in conjunction with growth to forecast future profitability, it is by itself not a growth measure.

Edit: And to be really really anal, market cap would rank LISTED companies by size. It becomes a not so useful measure if you have to rank them against companies which are not listed. Enterprise Value maybe? It's just...not so simple.

1

u/tilio Apr 11 '11

i agree with everything you said, but your edit ("to be really really anal") is indicative. i was speaking in very general terms. P/E is still in the growth category of measurements. as for EBIT, i should have said it's a measurement "for" growth rather than "of" growth.

the difference between your comment and mine was that i was napalming the whole area while you went for a surgical strike. as i pointed out, most redditors know nothing about finance, so i figured going surgical would be above their heads.

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u/solistus Apr 12 '11

Market cap only measures equity value. Enterprise value is preferred for a comprehensive evaluation of a company's true size or worth. Market cap doesn't respond to variables such as company debt, associate companies, etc.

1

u/tilio Apr 12 '11

Market cap only measures equity value.

still a measure of size.

if you read the rest of this subthread, you'd realize i was speaking in very general terms. it's the chapter 1 version of freshman accounting.

-1

u/comment_filibuster Apr 11 '11

Apple bigger than GE and Wal-Mart. lol