Microsoft's fiscal year 2006 revenue was more than double Apple's FY '06 revenue: $44.3 billion to $19.3 billion. What has happened since? Apple's revenues have more than tripled, while Microsoft's have grown by less than 50%.
Bottom line: Apple's fiscal year 2010 revenue edged Microsoft's, $65.2 billion to $62.5 billion. (Note: Microsoft's fiscal year is July through June, and Apple's is October through September.)
Microsoft's profits were six times larger than Apple's in their respective 2006 fiscal years. Apple's net income has subsequently grown sevenfold, while Microsoft's has increased roughly 50%.
Bottom line: While Microsoft still generates more profits than Apple, the gap has narrowed significantly. If current trends continued -- a big if -- Apple would likely top Microsoft's profits in a couple of years.
Microsoft still employs substantially more people than Apple does, although the size of Microsoft's workforce has dropped a bit, from 93,000 in 2009 to 89,000 in 2010. Apple's reported headcount has been rising, with a significant jump from 34,300 in 2009 to 46,600 in 2010.
Bottom line: Apple's revenue per employee at the end of its 2010 fiscal year was substantially higher than Microsoft's: $1.4 million versus $702,000. Likewise, Apple's profits per employee were $300,429, compared with $211,236 for Microsoft.
So how do they stack up overall? Opinions aside, Apple has impressed investors much more than Microsoft has, despite the latter's considerably larger size and continued dominance on the desktop. Apple's recent ability to create category-changing (or category-creating) devices such as the iPhone and the iPad -- as it did with the iPod several years earlier -- appears to carry much more weight than Microsoft's assured, steady income stream from a maturing market. However, experts do expect Microsoft to overtake Apple in the smartphone market.
Bottom line: Those of us who thought a year ago that Apple might be overvalued have been proven wrong ... so far.
Want more? Head to our Microsoft and Apple complete coverage pages for news, analysis and opinions about these companies.
Mari Keefe gathered much of the data for this report.
Sharon Machlis is online managing editor at Computerworld. Her email address is smachlis@computerworld.com. You can follow her on Twitter 
@sharon000, on Facebook or by subscribing to her RSS feeds:
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