By dethroning Microsoft as the world’s top technology company, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has piloted a stunning phoenix-like rise from the ashes for the firm he founded nearly 35 years ago.

Apple, maker of the Macintosh computer, the iPod, iPhone and iPad, surpassed US software giant Microsoft this week in terms of market value and now trails only Exxon Mobil and PetroChina in market capitalization.

Apple’s market capitalization — the number of shares outstanding multiplied by the stock price — at the close of trading on Wall Street on Thursday was 230.53 billion dollars compared with 227.86 billion dollars for Microsoft.

Apple’s annual net profit, however, continues to trail that of Microsoft — 5.7 billion dollars compared with 14.6 billion dollars last fiscal year — as Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer noted in New Delhi on Thursday.

“It is a long game,” Ballmer told reporters. “Certainly there is no technology company on the planet that is as profitable as we are.”

Microsoft may indeed be more profitable, but investors are increasingly betting on Apple and its string of must-have consumer gadgets.

“It’s really hard not to be upbeat on Apple,” said Standard and Poor’s analyst Clyde Montevirgen, pointing out that the Cupertino, California company’s sales and profits rose even during the economic crisis.

Apple’s ascendance can be directly traced to Silicon Valley legend Jobs, who Fortune Magazine last year crowned the “CEO of the Decade.”