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Is Apple the new Big Blue?
Ten years ago, if you were to say that Apple would ever be bigger than IBM, you'd have been laughed out of the room and promptly granted a prescription for anti-psychotics.
IBM has dominated the world of computing since its inception. In the 60's and 70's, the company became synonymous with the idea of business computers and "Big Blue" has routinely been referenced as the standard by which all other huge multi-billion dollar corporate entities are judged.
Apple, on the other hand, has always been postured as the "anti-IBM." The ragged techno-hippies that are just as concerned about style as they are practicality. Since the early days of Woz and Jobs in the garage, Apple has aimed to be everything IBM isn't.
Now, it seems that Apple is bigger than even Big Blue.
As of the last couple of days, Apple has officially overtaken IBM in market capitalization, logging a $161.84 billion cap, while IBM weighed in at a paltry $155b. This gives Apple the largest market cap among personal computer vendor, and puts them behind only Microsoft, Google, and Cisco in the tech world.
What's amazing is that nothing has really changed in terms of people's attitude.The news that Apple has a larger market cap than IBM is seen as a surprise to many, if for no other reason than that Apple still has the "feel" of a small company.
Yes, there's the rumbling of "antitrust" amongst the hardcore tech crowd, but the average person still sees Apple as a hip, underdog company whose products are often muscled out by the bigger firms. Mac users still seem to have the notion that they're part of an exclusive community, even as the Mac's market share continues to soar and the iPod becomes ridiculously prevalent.
Perhaps much of this is from Apple spending so much time as a true underdog. For years Apple was on the brink, and there truly were products that, intentionally and otherwise, got muscled out of the spotlight by inferior offerings from bigger brands. Mac users resorted to evangelizing the platform out of fear that, if they didn't, it would go belly-up. Despite the company's phenomenal success, that attitude has prevailed. Mac users are still a close-knit group on the web and, despite the ridiculous amount of praise showered upon Apple in the press, any negative comment about the company is met with the type of fervent denouncement normally reserved for political parties and religious groups.
Apple's own marketing has played a part in this as well. Since the days of the first iMac, Apple has gone with either slick, simple minimalistic ads, or user "testimonials" on how great the product is. The company has continued to present its products as an "in-crowd" type of thing where you may not know the details, but everyone that has one raves about it. Even at the Apple store, customers get pitched more on the machine's "experience" than on its specs.
Perhaps that's the difference. Whereas IBM has long since sold everyone "tools" Apple has sold an "experience" that seems to be limited to a select few. Even as its grows bigger than IBM, Apple customers still feel that they're not joining a massive throng of customers, just joining a larger community.
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