Apple could become world's most valuable company

While the world focuses on the threat that a gigantic Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA)-NBC Universal would pose, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has quietly stepped to the threshold of being the world's most valuable company.

One iTune, iPhone and IPad at a time, Apple has apparently massed enough strength to overwhelm Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) as the number one company on the Standard and Poor's 500 market index. If it happens--and it's important to note that it hasn't yet--it will mark the second time that a tech company that doesn't pay dividends makes up the greatest share of the elite 500. Apple's hated rival, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), was there first.

There's no guarantee that Apple will take over the top spot, an Associated Press story emphasizes. There's still a $60 billion differential between it and Exxon, but, Exxon doesn't seem likely to surge any time soon and Apple, with its upcoming Apple TV isn't likely to slow down, built on a market where consumers "seem to have convinced themselves that they may as well buy devices to make all that time spent at home more exciting."

If that's not enough to shiver the timbers of the cable industry, the obviously biased Apple Blog reports that Apple TV is a "weapon of war" aimed at "the entrenched cable and satellite TV service providers."

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