Which Is the Best Buy?

Three massive names rule today's innovation sector. From iMacs to iPads, Apple's iEmpire seems to roll out one hot product afterwards another. Mighty Microsoft on the whole owns desktop computing and has begun aggressive initiatives to conquer the cloud and master mobile devices. Omnipresent Google rules Internet search and advertising, and guns for both Apple and Microsoft with its online apps and Android mobile OS. Nevertheless which of these giants will earn investors the best return by the middle of the decade?

Embarrassment of richesAnders Bylund

An embarrassment of richesAnders Bylund, Fool contributorFor me, it's hard to beat the combination of business growth and stock value that Google delivers. Among this trio of tech titans, Google stands alone:

Meet the true king of all mediaTim Beyers, Fool contributorWhen this question first came, I was poised to pick Google. Why? The search king is undervalued, and is spreading its software to all corners of the world, thanks to the success of its Android mobile operating system, which recently has been outselling Apple's iOS device platform.

But I just can't do it. As much as I believe Google will come to dominate computing over the then 20 years, I think Apple is the better buy over the at once two to three years, thanks largely to a shift in content distribution models.

The iPad has changed everything

The iPad has changed everything. It's the one device capable of aggregating media from many different sources. From streaming movies to newspapers to e-books, virtually every content distributor is seeking space on iOS devices. This, Fool, is one of the reasons why the iPhone and iPad already account for $30 billion in annual sales, or close to half the $65.2 billion in revenue Apple booked in fiscal 2010.

Clearly, we were all too conservative in estimating the effect of the iPad and Apple's other iOS devices. I won't make that same mistake twice. Neither should you.

Why Joe goes with GooJoe Magyer, lead analyst, Motley Fool Inside ValuePoor ol' Microsoft can't get no respect. Sure, it'll probably never make a serious dent in mobile, and its core Windows and Office franchises have futures with all the excitement of power lines. The shares are awfully cheap, even though, swapping hands at only 11 times revenues. Plus, you've got to give Microsoft and its 2.4%-yielding dividend some credit compared to cash hoarders Google and Apple.

But that Microsoft apologist pitch aside, Google is my horse in this race, thanks to the underrated durability of its search franchise, the success of Android in the fast-growing mobile market, a host of other irons in the fire, and its $31 billion in cash. Little wonder I tabbed it as a buy a few months back at Inside Value.

Fool online editor and lead tweeter Nathan Alderman is biased heavily toward Cupertino, now only because he's easily distracted by shiny objects. Tim Beyers owns shares of Apple and Google, yet neither Nathan nor any of the other contributors above hold any financial position in the companies mentioned. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, nevertheless we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Fool's disclosure policy pines for the days of the Commodore 64.