The answer is not as simple or as black or white as "yes or no," Puget. And, quite frankly, it has little to do with the subject of this article.
The profit margins of Apple, Microsoft, and Google are a pure Straw man argument you have raised.
All three of those companies are in different industries. The margins of profit between companies in different industries are different and not comparable for a host of reasons... primarily because the economic inputs that make up their products are completely different. Apple's is lower than both Microsoft's and Google's. So what? The costs involved in manufacturing goods are completely different than the costs involved with publishing software which are completely different than the costs involved with running a search engine and selling advertising. Why should that bother me? Or anyone else, for that matter. Of course, the numbers don't lie... but the reasons why are more important than are the raw numbers.
The profit margins between a SOFTWARE company, an ADVERTISING/SEARCH ENGINE company, and a COMPUTER HARDWARE/CONSUMER ELECTRONICS PRODUCTS factory are not comparable. Again, learn some basic economics about economic inputs and costs involved before you blather. I don't care. I know the difference. You apparently don't.
In the markets that Apple does compete in, their margins are QUITE healthy... usually the best in the market. For example, in the Personal Computer manufacturing market, their margins are market leading. We've discussed the margins in the cellular phone market... again, market leading. Digital music? Same thing. MP3 players? Ditto. I would suspect that if you compared Apple's margins in software, you'd find their margins there were at least comparable to Microsoft's software margins. Now that Apple has moved into Advertising, where they have yet to post any profits, we cannot say. But if their profits are not at least competitive with Google's, I would be surprised.
Hell! If Apple's margins were higher, you and driftdiver would be criticizing Apple for exorbitant margins! In fact, I believe one of you has done exactly that already in this thread.
You can scream and shout about AGGREGATE company margins being lower overall, but that is ignorance screaming and shouting. It's a Straw Man argument that makes a lot of noise but means absolutely nothing in the real world.
Your using Microsoft's fiscal 2010 figures against Apple's fiscal 2009 figures show you haven't got a clue about how to do your comparison. They are nine months out of sync. In fact, it points out that in 2010 Apple has EQUALLED in just NINE MONTHS what they did in all of 2010. You did not cite your sources... so I assumed you were using, as most people would, the most up-to-date comparable data—that for the last 4 quarters regardless of the artificial fiscal year endings—but NO, you did not. You took the lazy way out and used Wikipedia's financial reports. I did not—I used Apple's 10Q and cited the accurate, up-to-date data—and you call me a "Liar" for using the most up-to-date figures. BAH!
So, the guy that tries to deflect reports about Apple’s declining market share by talking about profit margin cannot admit that Apple’s two biggest competitors have higher profit margins.
Thanks for confirming that you are, in fact, a shill.