It doesn't bother me at all. I told you Microsoft sold the stock for a profit. I never denied they sold Office 97 to Mac users (just not in the numbers you think). You started this by repeating the myth that Microsoft bailed Apple out and saved them as a company. I have shown you that the myth is not true. Microsoft would never have done it had they not been rightly sued by Apple and losing the case.
What does bother me is the continued spreading of this FUD, this lie, when the actual facts are easily found... contemporary documents, the original legal contracts themselves, and examining WHO got what out of the deal, show easily that there was no "bail out" of a beleaguered Apple but instead a negotiated settlement in which both parties gained something. When you publish it once again, it shows that it is people like you, Discostu, who occupy the "Reality Distortion Field." I've posted documentary evidence of what actually happened... you offer one news article quoting MS's spin, and your unsupported opinion. You want to IGNORE things like:
David Boies, attorney for the DoJ, noted that John Warden, for Microsoft, had omitted to quote part of a handwritten note by Fred Anderson, Apple's CFO, in which Anderson wrote that "the [QuickTime] patent dispute was resolved with cross-licence and significant payment to Apple." The payment was $150 million. . . . The confirmation of the payment appears to be the first hard news that Microsoft had been forced to back down in Apple's case against Microsoft.
Note that it says NOTHING about Apple having to pay anything.
The MS "10 - 15 times profits" you impute to the settlement are more of your dancing... they would mostly have been made anyway. Apple was not going to go under... it had already turned the corner and was showing a profit after posting a loss in one year only: 1996. Macs were still being sold. Mac users would be buying software. The market for Office '97 for Mac would still be there regardless of the settlement. MS could sell their Office suite and make back their development costs and make a profit. The only profits that may be legitimately associated with the purchase of the stock would be those from the sale of the stock. EVERYTHING else would have been there regardless of the purchase.
Ask yourself this: "Why would Microsoft cancel distribution of Mac Office '97 for Mac when it was already fully developed, published, boxed and ready to be sold to those 8 million potential customers and when it represented such a large profit center with a potential return of $1.2 billion dollars?" That's cutting off their nose to spite their face unless they had a good reason to threaten to do it. They did it to pressure Apple into dropping the lawsuit that they knew they would lose... and lose bigger than that potential profit. All they had to do to make that potential $1.2 billion was to release the product they were withholding to pressure Apple into dropping the lawsuit. Apple refused and instead offered a compromise... the settlement.
The fact is that MS would never have invested $150,000,000 in Apple unless they were forced to... which they were by the terms of the lawsuit settlement. READ the three agreements... not the face saving spin Microsoft put on them. Why did they agree to a "cross licensing agreement" which requires Microsoft to PAY yearly royalties to Apple for the license for Apple's software patents MS had been violating and agree to grant to Apple, free of royalties, a perpetual, for the life of the patents, license for those MS patents that Apple was interested in that were not even part of the lawsuit? Why did they give Apple a five year commitment to continue producing and DEVELOPING MS Office for Mac?
What did Apple give up in return for all of these payments and continuation of a product that Apple would make no money from? A stock certificate that probably cost them about $5 to print.
Who won?
When a law suit is settled out of court, you can bet that the party who PAYS is the party who would be losing if the case went to trial.
I think it does bother you, look at the size of this post, all trying to defend the idea that MS got their clock cleaned.
You don’t like the numbers take it up with CNet, they’re the ones that said there were 8 million Mac Office users.
I’m not spreading any FUD at all, not anything that even closely resembles FUD. Quote my FUD, go ahead, I dare you. There is not ONE SINGLE DROP of FUD in ANY of my posts.
I never said there was a bail out. Apple WAS having issues at the time, that’s documented, the deal probably helped them, that’s obvious but I NEVER said bail out, that’s YOUR words, your FUD.
As for what Apple gave, remember preferred stock gets dividends before common, it wasn’t just some $5 print job stock has meaning. If they were profitable during the time MS owned that stock MS got some of that money.
I think both sides won. The repair of the strained Apple MS relationship was good for both companies. It helped bolster Mac’s image as a viable platform (something that was in question at the time) and helped solidify their foundation for the modern push, and it made MS a boat load of money and it’s one of the few times MS made a boat load of money without any raping or pillaging. MS very well might have lost had the case would it’s way through court, but that’s immaterial because it was settled amicably to the benefit of both companies outside the courts. Nobody got taken to the cleaners, and only a FUD spreader would say otherwise. Stop the FUD.