Far be it from us to go pooping on people's parties, especially heading right into a weekend-- miniPod weekend, no less. Still, sometimes we see people getting all jump-up-and-downy about some allegedly amazing Apple sales figure or profit metric, and that's fine if the numbers do indeed warrant some celebratory periodic vertical repositioning, but every once in a while folks go all googly-eyed for a number that really isn't all that worth getting excited about. Should that bother us? No, of course not. Does it? Well, yeah. Are we going to whine about it? A little. Will we ever stop asking questions and then answering them ourselves? Shut up.

So here's the latest good news number that's got some people doing a little jig: BusinessWeek is talking about the "best gains in 31 years" when it comes to corporate profits, and in the technology division, "Apple Computer Inc. recorded the largest increase for the group, a 552% jump in annual profits to $137 million, thanks to strong sales of its computers and the iPod." a 552% profit increase? A higher percentage increase than any other tech company? Clearly it's time to do that jumping up and down thing. Why, even Microsoft's profits "rose just 9%." In your face, Redmond!

Except, of course, percentage increases are almost useless for comparative purposes like this. Sure, Apple boosted its profit 552% over the previous year-- but it still "only" pulled in $137 million. That may sound like a lot to losers like you and us, and in high tech it's still pretty respectable, especially with plenty of companies losing money these past few years. But anyone who's getting down and funky with their bad selves because of Apple's 552% increase while Microsoft's profit growth was "just 9%" might want to compare the actual profits recorded by the two companies, as opposed to the percentage increases: Apple made $137 million, and Microsoft made $8.9 billion. In other words, Microsoft made 65 times as much as Apple in profit, and even the absolute increases don't necessarily compare well: Apple increased its profit by $116 million, while Microsoft boosted its profit by $735 million. Suddenly the jumping up and down gets a lot less boisterous.

But that's what happens when you compare relative percentages; numbers can look just about any way you want. Not that Apple's growth isn't good, or even that the 552% increase isn't something to be happy about; it means that Apple had kind of a rough year in 2002 and bounced back in 2003. But comparing it favorably to Microsoft's profit growth when Microsoft has so much less room to grow in a percentage sense seems a little silly to us. We suppose we should be thankful that none of the companies tracked broke even in 2002 and made $1.38 in 2003; Apple would have come in second to the amazing ∞% profit increase of SmallFryTech, Inc.

But you can keep jumping up and down if you want to-- it is the weekend, after all.