14 DAY TRIAL // The stock market isn't exactly the best quantifier of a company's quality or future, but it's one of the easiest to compare. While Facebook may have halved in value since the IPO, other companies aren't doing so bad, notably it's competitor Google.
After its stock value languished for a few years, it's been seeing a big resurgence lately, so much so that Google is now more valuable than Microsoft, at one point the most valuable tech company in the world.
Apple overtaking Microsoft for the first time was a big event, even if it was a largely symbolic one, but Google doing the same is just as important if not even more so, since, though it may not seem like it, Microsoft and Google compete on more fronts than either Microsoft and Apple or Google and Apple.
Google's market cap, based on its stock price, has inched past Microsoft's despite being $19 billion behind at the start of the year.
Google is now valued at around $248.05 billion, €192.9 billion while Microsoft is valued $247.98 billion, €192.83 billion. It's hardly a decisive difference, but Google is going up while Microsoft is going down.
Still, with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 just around the corner, Microsoft's stock price could plummet or skyrocket in the next few weeks.
At this point, Apple, valued at around $625 billion, €486 billion is the most valuable company in the world not just tech company, and it's so far ahead that no one is catching up anytime soon.
Plenty of experts have repeatedly said that Apple has no more room to grow and the company has proved them wrong each and every time so it's anyone's guess how higher can Apple go.
For comparison, Facebook is valued at around $47 billion, €36.5 billion though it started more than twice that and was more valuable than Amazon at one point. Amazon is valued at $114.70 billion, €89.19 billion.