A roundup of today's tech news
Apple overtakes Microsoft in value
Apple shot past Microsoft as the world’s biggest tech company based on market value this week, the latest milestone in the resurgence of the maker of the iPhone, which nearly went out of business in the 1990s.
Apple’s shares rose as much as 2.8 per cent on Nasdaq on Wednesday as Microsoft shares floundered, briefly pushing Apple’s market value above $229 billion (€186.7 billion), ahead of its long-time rival. Both stocks ended down after a late-day sell-off, but Apple emerged ahead with a market value of about $222 billion, compared with Microsoft’s $219 billion, according to Reuters data.
Shares of Apple are worth more than 10 times what they were 10 years ago, as it has profited from revolutionising consumer electronics with its stylish, easy-to- use products such as the iPod, iPhone and MacBook laptops.
The last time Apple had a higher market value than Microsoft was December 19th, 1989. Microsoft has not been able to match growth rates from its heyday 1990s. Its stock is down 20 per cent from 10 years ago. – (Reuters)
LaunchPad entries sought
The National Digital Research Centre has announced a call for entries for the second run of its LaunchPad programme, which is targeted at entrepreneurs in the digital sector who want to accelerate their ideas to the start- up phase.
The programme is based on successful international initiatives such as Y Combinator and the Plug and Play Tech Centre initiatives in Silicon Valley.
LaunchPad supports an entrepreneur or small team over a three-month period and provides a mentoring programme, weekly workshops and networking opportunities, and an investment of up to €20,000 a project.
The inaugural LaunchPad, which ran earlier this year, spawned a number of start-ups including CloudSplit, a tool for monitoring the costs of cloud computing services, PointTheWay, a GPS navigation system for the visually impaired, and Ketchup, a web application for managing meeting notes and agendas.
The closing date for applications is July 11th. Further details at www.ndrc.ie/submit/launchpad/
Inquiries into Apple dominance
The US justice department is making preliminary inquiries into whether Apple unfairly dominates the digital music market, according to three people whose companies have been contacted by regulators.
They said the department contacted some music labels and digital music providers earlier this month. The companies have been mostly asked broad questions about the nature of the digital music market, according to two of the three sources, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, as the talks were confidential. “It was a very preliminary conversation,” said one of those concerned.
Given Apple’s leading market share, the broad questions inevitably involved iTunes, the three said.
Billboard magazine reported in March that Apple had used its market dominance to prevent labels from agreeing to let Amazon.com exclusively debut new songs. – (Reuters)
