Bekker's Blog

Blog archive

Big Blue Passes Redmond in Market Capitalization

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about the latest Millward Brown brand value rankings. I'd lost track of the metric and was surprised to find that IBM had surpassed Microsoft in brand value last year.

Now IBM, which Microsoft so famously left in the dust in several ways on the strength of its PC offerings, has retaken Microsoft on a more widely watched measure.

According to the Business Insider blog, IBM surpassed Microsoft's market capitalization around 11 a.m. on Friday and held onto about a $1 billion lead at the close (IBM $207 billion, Microsoft $206 billion.)

The post's author and former Directions on Microsoft analyst Matt Rosoff notes that Lou Gerstner was brought in from the outside to turn IBM and around, and asks rhetorically, "So how much longer will Microsoft stick with Steve Ballmer before it has to make the same move?"

The anti-Ballmer drumbeat is only getting louder.

Posted by Scott Bekker on May 23, 2011


Featured

  • Windows 365 Cloud Apps Now Available for Public Preview

    Microsoft announced this week that Windows 365 Cloud Apps are now available for public preview. This aims to allow IT administrators to stream individual Windows applications from the cloud, removing the need to assign Cloud PCs to every user.

  • Report: Security Initiatives Can't Keep Pace with Cloud, AI Boom

    The increasingly fast adoption of hybrid, multicloud, and AI systems is easily outgrowing existing security measures, according to a recent global survey by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) and exposure management firm Tenable.

  • World Map Image

    Microsoft Taps Nebius in $17B AI Infrastructure Deal To Alleviate Cloud Strain

    Microsoft has signed a five-year, $17.4 billion agreement with Amsterdam-based Nebius Group to expand its AI computing capabilities through third-party GPU infrastructure.

  • Microsoft Brings Copilot AI Into Viva Engage

    Microsoft 365 Copilot in Viva Engage is now generally available, extending Copilot's AI-powered assistant capabilities deeper into the Viva platform.