Microsoft comes top of the tech pack

You have the wrong idea.

The point is the recognition of the brand. And how people think of the brand. I have my own doubt though, namely that outside of coca-cola and diet coke, coke products don't really benefit from the brand name. (How many people can tell me if 7up is a Coke or Pepsi product?) Coke branded products do well for the same reason Microsoft ones do, they put people in exclusive distribution situations. (So the choice isn't really do you want your resteraunt to have coke or Pepsi, but all Coke or all Pepsi products)*.

*This is not to say that Coke products are bad, just that some bad coke products can get carried by these kinds of situations, since you still want to have the good ones.

RE: iffy

Stan, you may be right, but it seems the unspoken semtiment is that it's corporate value of the brandname, not the company value, so it means perception, meaning individual consumers.

Effectively consumers respond to big brands like Coke, MS, Google, etc, but peopel don't buy Haliburton oil.

But you make a valid point - the few consumers who are also heads of large oil companies reselling from the suppliers might be worth more to haliburton than I am to MS...

Criteria, Criteria, Criteria

Depends how you're judging things...

In terms of turnover, they're certainly correct.

In terms of technological achievement - unless you're including theft & bullying - MS is nowhere.

In terms of tecnology producing life/lifestyle enhancements - per-lease!

I suppose that M$ really is all about $$

Brand power

It's all about the value a brand name has.

I've never even heard of Haliburton oil, yet I know of MS and Coke. Go to China, Russia, India and they will have heard of these brands.

Oh fogot Linux blah blah blah, Firefox this & that, MS sucks and is the root of all evil (sod the bloke up on trial for killing thousands in Cambodia, he has nothing on Bill)