Apple Inc passes Microsoft Corp in marketing capitalization on Wednesday. Now Apple is only behind of Exxon Mobil among the U.S. companies.

Apple’s shares rose 1 percent on Nasdaq on Wednesday, pushing its market value up to $225.1 billion and ahead of Microsoft’s $222.7 billion. Apple shares were up 1 percent above $247 in late afternoon trading. Microsoft shares were down 2.2 percent to $25.50.

This happens in less than 3 months after Apple passed Walmart to become the company with the third highest market cap.

After decreasing in October of 2008 and then again in January of 2009 (when Apple CEO Steve Jobs took a six-month leave of absence), Apple’s stock has been on the rise. In fact, it has increased 95% over the last 52 weeks.

Microsoft has launched Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 version in English, German, Japanese and Simplified Chinese languages.

As far as I know Windows Vista users will have to find the uninstaller for beta 1 and it is located under: Control Panel, Programs & Features and in the left menu: “Installed Updates” under the listing Windows Internet Explorer 8. You will then be required to restart your system before beta 2 can be installed.

In new IE 8 they have enhanced tabbed browsing, good looking address bar, Inprivate browsing, undo closed tabs. Even you can reopen last browsing session.

From yesterday I have been facing slower Internet connection but today my Internet service provider informed me the reason behind slow browsing.

Due to damage of submarine cable systems, we are having difficulty to accessing the Internet or experience slow browsing and to making international calls.

This failure has affected Gulf Arab region, Egypt, India and other countries as well. Egypt’ 70% of Internet network was down, while India reported it has cut 50% to 60% in bandwidth.

Nobody know how the cables were cut or weather was a factor because Storms had forced Egypt to close the northern mouth of the Suez canal on Tuesday.

It is expected to full restoration would take 10 to 15 days.

Today, Skype users is unable to make long distance phone calls over the Internet. It is not immediately clear how many users are affected but Skype users in India, Germany, Finland, and the United States reported difficulties logging on.

Skype has around 220 million accounts with usually 5-6 million users online at given time. The company was acquired by eBay in October 2005 for about $2.1 billion.

“Our engineering team has determined that it’s a software issue,” according to a site maintained by Skype. “We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours.”

During writing this post, Skype is also unable to login in my computer:( I am hoping to connect via Skype soon.

Jay Westerdal of DomainTools.com confirms Apple has bought a iPhone.com domain from Michael Kovatch. Michael didn’t confirm the sale price of his domain name yet but Jay believe sold price could be one million dollars.

Michael Kovatch had registered the domain back in 1995 and had plans to build a company on the domain.

After final the deal, domain is still in Michael domain account and Apple plans to transfer the domain in next week.