IBM may become more valuable than Microsoft, looking at the market capitalizations of both companies Tuesday morning.

Market cap is the stock price times the total shares outstanding.

IBM's market capitalization Tuesday morning was about $203.7 billion, according to the NASDAQ.

Microsoft's market cap Tuesday morning was hovering around $204.4 billion, according to the NASDAQ.

For a long time, Microsoft was the most valuable technology company in the world.

A year ago, Apple's value surpassed Microsoft's and the company is now worth over $100 billion more than Microsoft at $307.6 billion, according to the NASDAQ.

IBM's value trumping Microsoft's will be a tough pill for Microsoft to swallow, considering how Microsoft employees joked that IBM was irrelevant during Microsoft's boom times in the '80s and '90s.

I will check Bloomberg for its market cap numbers later today. Sometimes there is variation in how various financial information services calculate market cap, which may make the gap between IBM and Microsoft wider or smaller.

Update 1:50 p.m.:

Microsoft remained more valuable than IBM after the stock market closed on Tuesday.

IBM ended the trading day slightly below Microsoft. The two companies were about $260 million apart in market capitalization.

IBM's market capitalization was $206.5 billion and Microsoft's value was $206.8 billion, according to Bloomberg.