Google Market Cap Exceeds IBM

analysis
Jul 12, 20071 min

Last week, Google stock (nasdaq:GOOG) hit an all-time high of $541 with a market cap of $169 billion (yes, with a B). That put their value higher than IBM's and on par with Cisco. Not bad for a company with an open source infrastructure. But alas, it was a short-lived record. This week, with Google's acquisition of email security provider Postini, the stock price shot up again to a new high of $543 and today clo

Last week, Google stock (nasdaq:GOOG) hit an all-time high of $541 with a market cap of $169 billion (yes, with a B). That put their value higher than IBM’s and on par with Cisco. Not bad for a company with an open source infrastructure.

But alas, it was a short-lived record. This week, with Google’s acquisition of email security provider Postini, the stock price shot up again to a new high of $543 and today closing at $544.

I think Google’s got a good strategy of building up a modern software suite optimized for the web, and this provides another piece of the puzzle. But it’s hard to know whether the share price is justified. Is it a bubble? Or is Google going to overtake Microsoft by taking the battle from the desktop to an online world with a classic disruption strategy?