These seem to be the three biggest players in the IT world. Can find the article, but MS was #1 a decade ago, least likely to be #1, but diverse enough to be least likely to fail at least in the short term. MS partners like Dell and HP hope they can make a late entry into the mobile market with Surface and Win 8 - we should know in 2013. Apple: can they remain creative after Steve Jobs? Google: they own internet ads - can they expand?
Unfortunately, Microsoft isn't going away any time soon. With Apple it's wait and see (it's too soon to tell, but so far it seems to be on the right track). Google has been doing weird things lately (putting way to many eggs in its Google+ basket). So while Microsoft may not be the BEST vote, it's probably the safest. The Best vote in terms of return rate is some company you haven't even heard of yet.
That's what one of my coworkers thought, back when CSCO was $70/share. I have a bunch that I'm losing $ on, but at least I didn't pay that much. Out of the 3, I think AAPL. I voted other but I can't name it. I don't know which. I suspect there will be some stock that will have a much bigger % gain than any of the 3 in the next 5 years. It may not even have IPOed yet.
