Everyone was clamoring today about how Apple surpassed Google in market cap today.

In all fairness, indeed, when measured by market capitalization (shares outstanding x share price), that is true.

But while Google has $12.7B in cash on its balance sheet, Apple has a whopping $20.7B.  In fact, in 2009, it’s expected that Apple will have $30B in cash, and by 2010 might even surpass MSFT’s cash hoard.

What does this mean?  Well, not much, other than the fact that when measured by enterprise value (market cap less cash plus debt), Apple trails Google $135.79B to $145.31B.

Over time, I don’t doubt that Apple can continue to see both its market cap and enterprise value grow, and eventually surpass Google’s.  Google remains a one-trick pony (search/AdSense) whereas Apple now has computers, music players and phones to boost its growth rate… no wonder Eric Schmidt et al. are so hellbent on video and wireless.

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