Except if Microsoft had bought it, it would not be worth even that much today.

Obviously this isn't meant to be taken seriously, but you could never buy a company for it's market cap. Shareholders wouldn't agree to an acquisition where they make exactly what they have now.

Also, you couldn't just buy up a ton of shares of stock either with the whole supply-demand curve of shares. If you buy 1% of Apple's shares, the share prices isn't going to just hover around the original price.

Wouldn't MSFT would have had to pay a premium on the market value per share? So upwards of 120% of market price?