Microsoft Profits Sink Below Apple's

Apple's profits have outstripped Microsoft's for the first time since Extreme was topping the charts and Mark Zuckerberg was in second grade. Microsoft's revenue and profits were actually up last quarter, but Apple managed to move ahead for the first time in 20 years with a $6 billion profit on revenues of $24.7 billion, reports the Guardian, which believes this may mark a key moment in the industry.

Analysts say Microsoft has been stung by a steep drop in laptop sales as large numbers of consumers opt to buy tablet computers, especially iPads, instead. "You have to live underneath a rock not to know that the iPad has taken share from the netbook,” the chief of a major Microsoft shareholder tells Bloomberg. “It’s a problem on the consumer side, and that’s a market where Microsoft continues to give up territory to Apple.” (More Apple stories.)