Apple's stock trajectory over the last few years is nothing short of ridiculous, which is not the case of MSFT's stock.

MSFT has been a whole other kind of ridiculous: As close to completely flat as you can manage given the turbulent financial markets for going on twelve years.

Adobe, Apple, Oracle, IBM, they've all completely eclipsed Microsoft in terms of stock performance. I'm not one to suggest stock price is everything, but it is an indicator as to how much faith people have, collectively, in the company.

When Apple was bottoming out they were in rough shape. Yes, they had billions in the bank and could've muddled along for another decade, and they never posted losses anywhere near what other companies at the time did, but they were a hurting unit.

Slumping market share, collapsing interest in their operating system, expensive research efforts coming up with nothing tangible to bring to market...

Sounds a lot like Microsoft, doesn't it?

That is because Microsoft had already had it's crazy growth in the 80s and 90s while Apple came out of it's death throes in the 2000s. Not to mention that MSFT gives dividends out to stockholders which keeps rewarding the shareholders and the stock price down.

Both AAPL and MSFT pay dividends with the yield being around 3.5% for MSFT and 2% for AAPL. Dividends seem to be a new post-Jobs thing for AAPL and may not continue into the future.