BusinessWeek on the death of Apple

Smart Money:

IT WAS A LITTLE MORE than 13 years ago that BusinessWeek printed its now-infamous cover story about Apple , then called Apple Computer, entitled “The Fall of an American Icon.” Beset with shrinking share and an uninspired product line, the very future of the company was increasingly in question. “Apple is rapidly becoming a minor player in the computer business” wrote BusinessWeek, predicting the company “may be swallowed up by Sun Microsystems or another rival.” (Meanwhile, earlier this year, Sun agreed to sell itself to Oracle for $7.4 billion dollars, a pittance compared to Apple’s market cap of $170 billion.)

Also interesting to note that BusinessWeek was sold for $5 million – I am sure a value based on its prescient calls over the past 13 years on everything from the housing boom, the ever bullish stock market, eight years of supporting “deficits don’t matter”, and awarding Microsoft an innovation prize for Vista.