Is Apple Worth More Than Greece?

Greece has a proud and long history, which has taken a battering in the financial storms circling the world. Further indignation was heaped upon the country yesterday when the stock of technology giant Apple rose sufficiently to make it more valuable than the country.
The Apple stock rose sufficiently on Thursday to value the company at more than $400 billion. That already makes it the world's most valuable tech company but it also makes it more valuable than several nations.
Apple's market capitalization is higher than the gross domestic product of countries such as Greece, Austria, Argentina and South Africa.  You can see a list of other things that Apple is more valuable at on this blog.
The valuation places Apple in 2nd place of the most valuable companies in the world, behind only Exxon Mobil, which is valued at around $420 billion.  It is nearly double that of fellow tech heavyweight Microsoft.


What's more, despite the size of the company, it still remains one of the fastest growing tech companies in the world.  Analysts expect last quarter sales to have risen by 45% year on year when they're announced next week.
Apple on Thursday announced three new initiatives to reinvent the textbook, including the ability to create and publish searchable, updatable and interactive e-textbooks for the iPad. The company also released a publishing tool for secondary school curriculums and instituted a $15 price cap for e-textbooks on the iBookstore

Read more: http://technorati.com/technology/article/is-apple-worth-more-than-greece1/#ixzz1kMh16R47