The New York Times posted a graph showing the stock price of Apple and Microsoft over the last 20 years.

It was announced a couple of days ago that Apple's market capitalization put it ahead of Microsoft, making it America's largest tech company.

I've been an Apple fan since our Elementary school got Apple II clones in the classroom when I was in the 4th grade. During Junior High, I wasn't exposed to computers very often, save for the IBM PCs at my dad's office, or at my friends' houses. I just didn't get those machines. They made no sense to me.

Then in the 10th grade, I changed schools and joined the journalism class at Bradshaw High School, a move that changed my life (seriously, that's not hyperbole). I had only seen a Mac once before, on a teacher's desk in Junior High, but the journalism classes at Bradshaw had 3, a Mac SE, an SE/30, and a IIsi. I was hooked. It was because of that class, and those Macs, that I became interested in graphic design.

By the next year, I was the laying out the ads section of the Yearbook, doing my best to recreate the advertisers' logos and their corporate identities, instead of just using Times New Roman to do a bunch of text only ads, as had been done before.

It hasn't always been easy being an Apple guy, but I've always been a staunch advocate for their way of doing things. It occurred to me yesterday that I haven't had to refute the claim that Microsoft owns Apple in a long time. I used to have to hear that from some of my wife's family members. To be sure, Microsoft was basically forced to invest $150 million into Apple in 1997 to keep the U.S. government off their backs because they were becoming a monopoly. They had to help ensure there was some semblance of a competitor out there. (The money was also basically a settlement payment to end the patent infringement lawsuits Apple had been fighting with Microsoft ever since they launched Windows, a copy of the Lisa and Mac).

Once Steve Jobs is gone, Apple's star may not shine as bright, but he has created a culture there that, I believe will continue the momentum that began when he returned to the company.