Charl Norman

Update: At closing Friday, Cisco did manage to edge Google by a hair, at $160.77 billion compared to Google’s $160.60 billion.

Google, the fast growing search engine, has eclipsed Cisco Systems, the router maker for the Internet, to become Silicon Valley’s most valuable company.

Google achieve its new status yesterday, when it hit a stock market value of $160 billion, slightly higher than Cisco’s $159 billion, however the eclipse may have happened earlier, say on Wednesday.

Right now, though, Cisco is still hanging on. It has traded upward today. In fact, the values of both Google and Cisco have been switching back and forth all morning. It should be a matter of time before Google stretches its lead, being the younger company with more momentum. However, if the economy falters, and advertising dips (and recent Wall Street jitters may be reflecting fears about a downturn in consumer spending), Cisco may surge back. That’s one reason why Google’s stock has dropped over the last day, and why Cisco may yet end up at top at the day’s closing.

Google still has a long way to go before catching Microsoft, the nation’s most valuable technology company, which is valued at $285 billion. Or, if you look outside the tech world, oil company Exxon Mobil is valued at $459 billion.

[Via: VentureBeat.com]