MS was losing plenty of suits around that time, only tech watchers really seemed to care, even MS didn’t seem to care much. I don’t think getting nailed for stealing some code was a loss of face issue for MS. Keep in mind too it had been a while since MS had updated Mac Office, they basically skipped porting 95 to Mac, and given their relationship it’s actually note worthy that they were even working on new Mac version at all.
I don’t really think anybody was over the barrel. MS could afford to lose another suit, while Apple would have been uncomfortable having no major productivity software for the Mac the would have survived. I think getting into the suit was the culmination of years of bad blood and somewhere during negotiations it dawned on them that bad blood makes for bad decisions, so they came to an agreement, added a “punishment” that did nothing (forcing MS to buy dividend paying stock which they then sold at a profit, very Br’er Rabbit as punishments go), and really up until the recent Mac ads have been pretty friendly to each other.
You really haven't got a clue about it. Apple has not issued a dividend since December 1995.
MS was losing plenty of suits around that time, only tech watchers really seemed to care, even MS didnt seem to care much. . . I think getting into the suit was the culmination of years of bad blood
Dancing, more dancing. More unsupported opinion from Discostu. Microsoft being sued was the direct result of their stealing code from Apple. . . a continuation of a practice that Microsoft was famous for. Usually MS just bought the suing company and absorbed them,