Here Come the Quarterly Results

It's an exciting day today (02012.01.19) because IBM, Microsoft, Intel and Google are reporting quarterly results.These four computing companies have a combined market value of $785.17 billion. For comparison purposes, the combined market values of Apple and Exxon Mobil is $813.19 billion.

IBM=$213.41B; INTC=$129.29B; MSFT=$237.48B; GOOG=$204.99B; AAPL=$398.82B; XOM=$414.37B

Update: 02012.01.20

During 4Q'11, Google had $2.97 billion free cash flow; spent $951 million expanding their infrastructure and increased its workforce by 1,114 Googlers. Yet, Google lost almost 10% of its market value immediately after they reported the 4Q'11 results because they did not "meet expectations."

During 4Q'11, IBM generated free cash flow of $9.0 billion.

During 02011, Intel returned $18 billion to shareholders via dividends and stock buybacks.

And then there is Microsoft. The company "finished 2Q'12 with $51.7 billion in cash; they bought back $1 billion in stock, paid out $1.7 billion in dividends, and spent $8.5 billion to buy Skype. The company had $46 billion of the cash overseas."