Google now worth more than Microsoft
blogs.marketwatch.com
blogs.marketwatch.com
What would it take for Microsoft to pull an 'Apple', and what would it take for IBM to really rebound?
Yahoo is in the process of trying to turn tables on Google which is a an attempt I don't have much faith in (mostly because Yahoo never managed to capture much of my interest in the first place so I find it hard to imagine to see them work their way out of the hole). But Microsoft just might have it in them somewhere to really come out swinging. But since Bill Gates isn't hurting in any way and more than content to let Ballmer do his thing it likely won't ever happen.
Microsoft was/is a large enough empire that it will take a very long time (many decades) before they're gone but this is a definite sign that their days of hegemony are over, they got surpassed rather than that they were out-competed.
It won't take long before they're a fraction of the size they were at their peak, and the company and it's products (and vision) are simply a shell of it's former self. Look at GM, HP...
I can imagine that a motorola phone could be made perfectly to work with google glass, a nexus tv running games in a chrome browser or playing "tv" through youtube.
It will be hard for Microsoft and even apple to untangle themselves from services like Youtube or compete with those like search. On the other hand, it would be relatively easy for google to make an iPhone quality phone or free software that works just as well as office for 99% of users.
These are much more important "metrics" to me personally (as a consumer):
* Innovation relative to peers.
* The value of their offerings to me in my daily life.
* How they treat their developers, developers, developers.
If you're looking at this from the lens of an investor, overall market cap/worth/whatever, it's a completely different story. However, I think most of us will be comparing the two companies by means that are more directly to us as individuals.