"We are all Apple stockholders now."

MANIFESTO

Back in the 1980s and into the '90s, we stalwart few hung onto our Macs, feeling that they were superior to the bloated Wintel machines of our colleagues. It seemed an empty exercise as in, for example, 1992 only one in eight of all personal computers sold were Macs.

Now, of course, times have changed, and with the introduction of the iPhone, the iPod, the iPad, and everything else except the iRack, Apple has put intself in a position where it has become the Goliath to Microsoft's David. For example,

Apple alone accounts for more than a fifth of the widely followed Nasdaq 100 Index. Anyone investing in that index—such as through the widely-held PowerShares QQQ Trust—may think they are spreading their money broadly across all of America's top technology stocks. But, in truth, you are investing more of your money in Apple than you are in Qualcomm, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon.com and Cisco Systems—put together.

Thus, it's been a very interesting ride for Apple. And given its astonishing sales numbers released yesterday and the concern about Steve Jobs' health, it's obviously got a way to go.