I have tried to keep my responses to you short-and-sweet but you will not let me do that: ;-)
“I maintain the Apple Ping list for over 700 of our Fellow Freepers who have asked me to do so. . . and they also expect me to correct the false claims with the truth.”
BINGO! ;-) Bias, zealotry, tunnel-vision and an avid Mac user. How can you expect to be objective? You simply can’t be objective. Have you ever used a PC or even considered using a PC? In addition , while you have written or copied/pasted pages and pages of information, you have not given any citations or sources for that information so that I have to treat all of that as opinion. ;-)
“I had a very good friend who developed a product used by almost everyone who had an MS-DOS PC.”
On the other hand, I knew someone who was a one-man operation. He wrote little apps for Windows XP. Microsoft bought him out. I do not know the dollar sum which he received from Microsoft. What I do know is that Microsoft immediately tried to hire him. He said, and I quote, “No, I’m retired!” Apparently the sum that they gave to him was sufficient to let him retire in his mid 30s. He travels the world now. Those apps were incorporated into Win2K3 Server and have been included in all versions since. They are still available for download from the Microsoft site but are mainly for admins/developers. Those apps are on the MSDN pages. The individual apps as well as the ‘package deal’ still carry/s my acquaintance’s name. Imagine that! Microsoft, the evil bully-giant who kicks around everyone and every computer company or who they see as their ‘competitors’, still giving the original programmer who is no longer connected to Microsoft in any way the ‘credit’ for his work! Quite amazing, wouldn’t you say!?
See? There are two sides to every coin. Now you are going to ask which apps/package deal, right? You have not given to me any information about ‘your friend’ have you? ;-)
“True, that later on Gates invested millions in Apple stock that helped Apple get over a near bankruptcy.”
There is where you agree with me that “Gates bailed out Apple”. If Gates, apparently in your mind, had ill feelings toward Apple then why didn’t he simply let them sink in the Marianas Trench? Would not that have ‘settled’, for all intents and purposes, and negated all of the ‘lawsuits’ that Apple had against Microsoft? Apple then would not have had the millions of dollars necessary to continue the lawsuits because they literally would have been out of business and out of money. ( Maybe common sense will cause you to open your eyes to that one but I doubt it. ) Would not Gates have then had the whole market to himself? He did not want Apple to die because, in the background, Jobs and Gates were friends. Was that a shock to the personal computer world? Of course it was because the personal computer world had no idea that Jobs and Gates were friends because, as you know, the MSM does their best to sell ‘conflict’ stories. They hauled in an awful lot of advertising dollars on the so-called ‘conflicts’ between Apple And Microsoft, didn’t they? Maybe, just maybe, you and others of your ilk have read and believed the media and not I! I remember the press conference vividly. Jobs and Gates on the stage sitting in chairs. Some idiot MSM journalist asked Jobs about the relationship between him and Gates. He replied, jokingly, “We have been married for 10 years but kept it a secret.” Does that sound like there were ‘conflicts’? ;-)
Both Jobs and Gates were/are, respectively, cut-throat businessmen. That is why they are/were both successful in addition to being in ‘cahoots’ with each other! Shock of shocks, huh? As I understand it, Mac has ~5% - ~10% of the market. PCs have the other ~90% - ~95% of the market. Those numbers have remained solidly in that range for over 20 years.
Because I am lucky enough to work on both PCs and Macs what I have found over the years is the following:
PCs are much more flexible in both hardware and software although Mac is becoming more flexible in the hardware area. PCs are much cheaper than Macs but perform the same tasks equally well. PCs last just as long as Macs. Replacement parts for Macs are much more expensive. Having to call a repairman for a Mac is much more expensive which is a boon to me! PCs and Macs do the same job equally well. Initially, Macs had good graphics presentations with their video but, again, PCs caught up with them.
Note: Please keep in mind, if you can, that Microsoft is not in the PC manufacturing business. They are in the software business unless you want to include things like mice, joysticks and keyboards. They do not manufacture desktop computers. Mac sells computers, software, trinkets that will eventually die on the vine, like iPod, iPad, iPhone and i( whatever ) else. While there is a very limited competition between the two corporations, they are essentially not even in the same business.
As far as Gates being ‘evil’ because of his donations to left-wing organizations, I happen to think that he is conservative as well as maybe having Asperger’s or maybe just a very severe case of ‘tunnel-vision’. Prior to his marriage he never ‘gave’ a dime to any organization and I would not blame him if he never gave a dime to any organization. That blond witch on NBC goaded and embarrassed him into ‘donating’ on national TV by asking, “Don’t you think that you should ‘give something back’?” She is lucky that she did not ask that question to me. My response would have been, “Give what back to whom?” Unfortunately for him, he married a bleeding-heart socialist. Because of his probable Asperger’s and/or ‘tunnel-vision’, she influences him, has him by the family jewels in private and leads him around by the nose in public. ;-)
How much did Jobs “donate’? ;-)
I think that we have reached the conclusion of our discussion. You are not going to sway because of your bias, zealotry, tunnel-vision, being an avid Mac user and defending Macs ‘to-the-death’ anthem while I still maintain objectivity because I am lucky enough to work with and on both systems.
Have a nice life in your illusion and please stop the speeches until such time as you can forget the bias, zealotry, tunnel-vision and being an avid Mac user. No offense meant because, as I said, I do not have a dog in this hunt. I have PCs and Macs that I use on a regular basis. ;-)
I never said any such thing, never that Gates bailed them out, that's your words. What I said is that Apple wasn't doing so good before Jobs came back to Apple. Jobs came back and restored them to profitability. I did say that Gates purchase of Apple stock had nothing to do with Apple's return to profitability. That was all Steve Jobs. Don't twist my words to aid your particular arguments (that are baseless).