Apple passes Microsoft as world's most valuable tech firm

Remember that little company that needed Microsoft's financial help just to keep going in 1997? Well, today that company - Apple - just surpassed Microsoft in terms of market value.

At the close of trading in Wall Street last night, Apple had a market capitalisation of $222 billion, compared with Microsoft's $219 billion. The valuation makes Apple the world's most valuable technology firm.

It marks an extraordinary turnaround for Apple, which was on the brink of collapse before Steve Jobs returned to the company in 1997. Indeed, Apple accepted a $150 million investment from Microsoft that year just to keep the company afloat.

A year later, Apple introduced the game-changing iMac, its iconic all-in-one computer, and the company has rarely put a foot wrong since.

It has subsequently launched two genre-defining products: the iPod and the iPhone, and many suspect it may be on the cusp of a third with the iPad, which goes on sale in the UK tomorrow.

Consequently, Apple's shares are now worth more than ten times what they were a decade ago, with the company now raking in $13.5 billion in revenue in the last quarter (still about $1 billion less than Microsoft).

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