Microsoft still has the majority of the desktop OS and MS Office, which are their two cash cows. Apple, though, has the part of the PC market it wants, which is the high end. In other areas, Microsoft's record is not good. In 2004, Microsoft launched the MSN music store to compete with iTunes. After a few years, they pulled the plug, and also left their "partners" high and dry by killing "plays for sure." Then they started the Zune project. Now they're starting MS Stores and are planning an App store for the Zune. They've tried several search engine challenges to Google without success, and the Android system seems to be making a better inroad into the smart phone market as a challenger to Apple than Windows Mobile.
Finally, over the last five years, Apple's stock has gone from $25 to $190, while Microsoft's has gone from $28 to $28. Microsoft is still larger, but not by as much as many think. Their last quarter sales were 13 billion, compared to 8.6 billion for Apple.
Dell might wish Windows did better on high end machines, but MS doesn’t care, a Windows license is a Windows license if the computer cost $400 or $2000. MSN music was a silly idea, too much competition. Zunes are selling, not well but they’re selling. The MS Store is actually a really good idea, MS has a pretty wide product selection and there’s nothing wrong with cutting out the middle man, they been successful selling stuff direct online for a while now. As for search engines (not that it has anything at all to do with their competition with Apple) MSN launched around the same time as Google and rebranded recently as Bing, nothing several about it. Android seems to be doing well.
In the modern age stock prices are the most meaningless thing on the planet. This is the post .com world, stock prices only relate to how much somebody thinks they can sell the stock for tomorrow. Meanwhile they’ve paid dividends every single quarter for the last 5 years, Apple steadfastly refuses to pay them, if you want to buy and hold you’ll get MS. Funny all that great press for Apple and their revenue was still only 2/3 MS, thus proving my point, if Gates thinks about getting annoyed all he has to do is look at the bank account.
They are even closer than that. Microsoft does not sell using the subscription method that GAAP imposed on Apple for the iPhone. Apple had to book the profits of iPhone sales over two years instead of when earned because of GAAP changes made in 2004. GAAP has now changed those rules back but Apple is still wrestling with how to reverse the accounting. During this quarter, the NON-GAAP sales for Apple was 12.4 Billion of which only 8.6 billion was booked. The rest was booked as "deferred income" even though they have the cash in hand.